our services

Food Quality Management

Consumers expect the food products they buy to be right. They expect them to be wholesome, unadulterated, nutritious and safe to eat. When food products fail to meet consumers' expectations it is often because failures have occurred in quality management during production or distribution.

All food businesses, large or small, require some form of quality management system to ensure that customer and consumer requirements are met, and to ensure that legal requirements are met as well. We can help you to design, implement and maintain your quality management system. We can also help you to learn about quality management systems so you can implement your own. Additionally, we are able to help you with continual quality improvement.

Whatever your quality management requirement, our expertise in quality systems and the use of quality standards e.g. BRC, SALSA, can benefit your business.

Food Safety Management

Irrespective of all other aspects of food quality, if a food product is not safe to eat then quality has not been achieved. All food businesses have both moral and legal obligations to produce safe food.

We can help you to understand what you need to do to produce safe food and to comply with legal requirements. We have expertise in food safety systems, Good Agricultural Practice, Good Manufacturing Practice and HACCP, and can help you to design, implement and maintain your food safety management system.

Training and Education

The success and profitability of your business will depend on many things, but significantly on the skills and abilities of your staff. We are able to help you with your staff training, education and development needs. We can provide training and education for your staff on an ad hoc basis or following an appraisal of your business's training and education needs and the development of individual staff training and education plans.

Management and Leadership Development

If you manage a food business and lead staff in the execution of their duties you should ask: "Am I a good a leader and manager?" You may consider that you are both. Your business's results may justify your belief. A little reflection though, may highlight areas where improvement is possible. Indeed, the complexity of business life today makes it almost inevitable that gaps will occur in your's and every manager's leadership and management skill set. These gaps should be identified and filled, as their existence may be limiting your busness's potential.

We can help you to assess your leadership and management abilities, and increase your leadership and management skill set for the benefit of your staff and business.

Graduates

It has been estimated that the UK's food industry will require 120,000 graduates between 2006-2014. University graduates provide the intellectual horsepower of the food industry. This is not to say that other skilled employees are not important, just that the driving force of the food industry at operational and strategic levels usually comes from its graduate staff.

The West Midlands Regional Food Academy is committed to increasing the number of university graduates embarking on careers in the food industry and particularly the industry in the West Midlands. To this end we work with our partner colleges and universities to connect with food businesses and help them to source the graduates they need. If your business needs graduate staff, or you think it could benefit by employing graduate staff , then speak to us. We can advise you and put you in touch with graduates who will add value to your business.

Placement Students

Many food businesses, large and small, take industrial placement students, often for placement periods of around 45 weeks. Industrial placements allow food businesses to take on an intelligent and capable person to carry out standard work or special projects, but they entail no long-term commitments. Industrial placement students can be of particular value to SME food businesses as they can help such businesses to develop and grow at a comfortable pace.

Through our partnership base of further and higher education institutions, we can help you to learn about the benefits of taking industrial placement students and we can help you to access such valuable short-term employees.

Low Carbon Operation

Concerns about global climate change and peak oil make it inevitable that pressure will be brought to bear on all food businesses to move to more sustainable and low carbon methods of operation. Initially, businesses will be encouraged by the authorities to make such adjustments, but in the end it is likely that legislation will demand changes.

We can help you to understand the impacts of your business on the environment and to change the way your business works for the benefit of the environment and to meet legal requirements.