Our ‘Swiss Army Knife’ consultants can help in so many ways

The consultants at We R Food Safety! are pretty amazing in terms of the capabilities we possess. We offer a wide variety of services. In fact, there are still a few clients out there that do not know of all of the services that We R Food Safety! consultants can provide, so if you were wondering, you’re not alone. Being in the trenches as a consultant myself, I’ve listed out many of them below, and you should take advantage of them if you’re not already, simply to: 1) reduce risk of unsafe product 2) reduce food waste, and 3) secure yield. 

Completing “deviation reports” is just one service we provide. If a cooked product does not meet your fermentation, lethality or cooling temperatures — and you have enough data — we are able to utilize many online tools and our expertise to potentially save the product. Now, I will make it very clear right now that we will never suggest saving product that could potentially contain pathogenic organisms, and in many instances, you will have to send the product for testing to ensure microbes have not grown. However, this is a better alternative than throwing out whole batches of product because there was a cooling deviation of, say, 10 minutes beyond what Appendix A allows, or if a smokehouse went down and product sat at a questionable temperature for some time. Imagine the cost saved from not having to destroy that product!

We also serve our clients by assisting them with Food Safety Assessments (FSAs). Having an FSA is simply the reality of being USDA-FSIS inspected. We R Food Safety! consultants can help provide answers to the EIAOs during the assessment. Similarly, we can help plants decide if a Non-compliance Report (an NR) is worth appealing or not. Further, we can help clients appeal the NR, or implement corrective actions if the finding was just. 

Assistance on third-party audits is one of our more substantial service offerings, and that has taken up a lot of my time lately, as well! The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) has set standards for food processors to meet. This includes SQF and BRC audits. I have been the primary consultant building and implementing plans with clients as of late and am coming away with successful audits. These audits are not going away and are heavily customer-driven. My job is to ensure there is no ambiguity when working through the audit requirements, as well as building the policies and forms for clients to comply, and ensuring clients understand these records and documents.  Most customers of meat processing facilities are requesting (demanding) that the processor have successfully been certified as a third-party audited company. 

For clients who use these services, we thank you! If you are not yet a client, or are a client who might be unfamiliar with these offerings, we hope that We R Food Safety consultants can assist you here as needed in the near future! We have loads of experience and expertise on staff here, and we hope that we are maximizing it to help the industry keep the food supply and consumers safe.

— Abbey Davidson, food safety consultant