Service
When your customer asks for documentation
Not every food safety requirement comes from a regulator. Often it is a customer, a wholesaler or a retailer who asks — and what they want is different to what a council wants.
Who it's for
- Importers and distributors whose customer wants to see a food safety plan
- Wholesalers and small manufacturers supplying retailers, food service or other businesses
- Private-label and contract manufacturers
- Businesses that have been sent a supplier questionnaire and do not know how to answer it
- Anyone whose overseas parent company wrote the plan and it is not landing well here
What I do
- Review an existing plan against the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code and tell you the gaps
- Write a Queensland-specific addendum where a parent company owns the original document
- Build a food safety plan from scratch where there is not one
- Complete supplier questionnaires and approval documentation
- Prepare the records a customer audit will ask to see
- Write corrective action responses when a customer raises an issue
- Traceability and mock recall documentation, which almost every customer asks for
Why an overseas plan often does not land here
A plan written by a parent company in another country is usually built around that country's framework — FDA in the United States, EU regulation in Europe. It can be thorough, well written and completely correct there, and still not satisfy an Australian customer or council, because it cites requirements that do not apply here.
That is the single most common reason a corporate plan gets knocked back locally, and it rarely means the plan is bad. It usually means it needs a local addendum rather than a rebuild.
Who can change the document
Where a parent company owns the plan, the local site often cannot amend it. That changes the approach: instead of editing the original, the work becomes a Queensland-specific supplement that sits alongside it, covering local licensing, your actual receival and storage process, Code references, and the records an inspector will ask for.
Knowing which situation you are in before work starts saves rework, which is why I ask early.
What "approved" means depends on who is asking
Customers use the word loosely. It can mean a council wants an accredited program, a retailer wants evidence against their own specification, or a certification body will audit you against a scheme. Those are three different jobs.
I prepare documentation and records. I do not issue certificates, and I do not audit systems I have worked on. Where certification is what your customer actually wants, I will get the documentation ready and point you to an appropriate certification body for the audit itself.
Send the plan before asking for a price
Reviewing a sound document and rebuilding one written to the wrong framework are very different jobs. Fifteen minutes reading what you have tells me which, and lets me quote a fixed price rather than a guess.
Anything you send is confidential and used only for the quote. Happy to sign an NDA first if your parent company requires one.
Questions
My customer asked for a HACCP certificate. Can you provide one?
No, and nobody honest will. Certificates come from accredited certification bodies after their own audit. I can prepare the documentation and records, and point you to a certification body. Often what a customer means by "certificate" is simply evidence of a documented plan, which is a much smaller job — worth checking before you commit to certification.
We import rather than manufacture. Does any of this apply?
Yes. Importers have obligations around supplier approval, labelling including country of origin and allergen declarations, storage and traceability. An importer is a food business, and customers increasingly ask importers for the same documentation they ask manufacturers for.
Do we need council accreditation?
Usually not, if you are importing, wholesaling or distributing rather than preparing food for vulnerable people or catering. Accreditation applies to specific higher-risk categories. If your pressure is coming from a customer rather than a regulator, that is a different piece of work.
How fast can you turn this around?
Most reviews come back within a week of receiving the documents. A full build depends on the operation. Tell me the deadline you are working to and I will tell you honestly whether it is achievable.