Are you launching a new food business or product or branching out into a new market in the food sector?
If you are an aspiring entrepreneur considering setting up a new business making and selling food products or an existing food business needing additional support we can help you ensure your products are legally compliant before placing them on the market.
Our experienced team of fully qualified Food Standards Officers can help guide you through the complexities of food labelling, composition and traceability requirements to avoid costly mistakes in the design, manufacture and marketing of new or niche food products.
How we can support your business
We can support your new, evolving or existing food business with any of the following:
- Food labelling compliance – what information needs to go on the label, where it needs to go and how it should be displayed.
- Allergen management systems – we can assess your current system or help you design a new one and provide practical solutions for managing the control of allergens in food to help keep your customers and staff safe.
- Health and nutrition claims – what you can and can’t say about the benefits and content of your products.
- Food additives – how to find out what additives you can use in your products and how much and how you should display them on the label.
- Product specific rules – foods such as chocolate, honey, jams, spirit drinks and more have their own specialist rules about what you can call them, what needs to go into them and what can’t to comply with strict compositional standards.
- Food descriptions – what claims can you make about the impact on the environment, animal welfare and methods of production, origin or provenance and the use of protected food names.
- Food imports and exports – check whether there are any restrictions on where you can source food and what you need to do to import or export food.
- Traceability – one step back and one step forward, what records you need to keep and for how long.
- Food safety incidents – what steps you need to take, how you can mitigate against potential losses and what procedures you need to have in place in the event you have to carry out a recall or withdrawal from the market.
- And much more…
Getting it wrong can be expensive to your business and damage the reputation of your brand particularly if you have to withdraw products from market and/or issue food recalls.
Whatever the size of your business or stage of production you can access our professional services through pay as you go on an hourly rate of £95/hour or apply to join our Primary Authority scheme for assured advice. You can also become a member of our Buy With Confidence or Made in Devon schemes to take advantage of marketing benefits and help build consumer confidence in your brand.
So whatever your plans, from designing an exciting new brand of vegan foods or revolutionary health supplements, to launching an exotic range of alternative healthy snacks from around the world, get in touch and find out how we can help you.