About Food Safety Learning & Development Food Safety Culture Contact

“We can support businesses and individuals reach new standards, problem solve and realise goals. Driving standards to do things the right way.”

Nic Sharman

Your partner in betterment

Nic Sharman Consultancy has been supporting the food industry since 1995, with proven expertise in all food and drink categories. This in-depth knowledge of standards and practices ensures we get the best from people and teams, improving efficiency as well as creating new effective standards and systems to work to.

Nic has a MSc in Food Safety Management and experience in chilled and ambient food manufacturing, catering, 2nd party auditing and retail. Her work with Marks and Spencer saw her being responsible for conducting food safety audits to assess and approve new suppliers globally and across many industry sectors.

Over a nine year period Nic managed and established new systems for Marks and Spencer with the responsibility for redeveloping the food safety and integrity manufacturing standards. These were rewritten from prescriptive codes of practice to outcome measures and requirements with guidance on how to achieve them. Once the new standards were completed she led the learning and development to retrain the Marks and Spencer Technical team and the 2nd party audit company ‘how to think grey’.

Nic Sharman Consultancy is built on the experience of betterment. Get in touch today to see how we can work together.

Connect on LinkedIn

Expertise

  • Food Safety and Integrity Education
  • Trouble Shoot and Root Cause Analysis
  • Food Safety Management System
  • Governance and Developing Teams
  • HACCP
  • Incident Management
  • Product Safety
  • Conducting Food Safety and Integrity Audits

Setting standards in food safety

Each factory is unique and there will be times when there is a challenge or a KPI you just can’t get under control. We can help support you in the following areas:

Factory design

Working with you we provide guidance on factory design and layout to deliver better food safety and improve efficiency.

Retailer requirements

We provide support with onboarding new customers or retailers. Understanding and integrating their requirements in order to achieve their approval.

Fact finding

Working with your teams we can provide extra support with troubleshooting and investigations to get to the root cause of a problem.

Food Safety Management

We can conduct HACCP study reviews or can Audit an existing food safety management system to verify compliance with GFSI standards or Customer requirements, providing practical advice and guidance to improve as appropriate.

Learning as individual as your company

We know that each business has its own unique needs and specific areas in which they wish to focus development on. We offer practical bespoke learning which is tailored to your business, covering food safety and integrity subjects. To support the teams embed and develop their learning we conduct shadow visits/audits.

Courses aimed at food and drink manufacturers can be completed in one of the following formats:

Online one hour course 

To provide bitesize learning on food safety and integrity topics. The courses are hosted in person and there will be an opportunity for questions and answers too.

Onsite 1 day in-depth course with project and complimentary half day follow up

A bespoke one day onsite course, focusing on a specific issue, using relevant data from the site and helping the team identify actions and change behaviours.

Onsite 4 day course practical and in the factory

To provide bespoke practical factory learning on a variety of food safety and integrity topics.

Course aimed at auditors

Onsite 2 day course

Learning how to get the best out of an audit, what questions to ask to get you the right information and best ways to connect the dots.

Course Topics

  • Product Safety and Food Safety Culture
  • How to prevent Foreign Body contamination in your factory
  • Allergen Management
  • Environmental Monitoring
  • Management of Cleaning
  • High Care/High Risk Manufacturing Requirements
  • Internal Audits
  • Pest Prevention
  • Management of Integrity & Segregation in your factory

Food Safety Culture

We can help you understand your culture and what strategies to implement that can change behaviours, set new norms and strengthen your food safety and quality culture.

Utilising the models in the GFSI Food Safety Culture Position Paper and PAS 320 documents, we can assess how you meet the five dimensions and support you to create a positive food safety culture.

“Food safety culture is defined as a long-term construct existing at the organisational level relating to the deeply rooted beliefs, behaviours and assumptions that are learned and shared by all employees, which impact the food safety performance of the organisation”

Sharman, N., Wallace, C. A., & Jespersen, L. (2020)

Testimonial

“Her technical knowledge is also second to none and I would not hesitate in re-engaging her services to help deliver future projects.”

As a small business and therefore a small team, with the majority of us needing to wear a number of hats within the business, we quickly realised in order to ensure the on boarding of two highly branded household named customers, we would need the focused attention of a professional resource. This is where Nic joined our team as Head of Technical. Nic’s three main projects were to secure the on boarding of the two customers, improve our BRC score and to establish a training package for the business to help cover several aspects but with the main focus being food safety and quality.

Nic, completed all three projects, not only within the given time frames and costs but also with a very inclusive style ensuring these legacies could be continued, by the in-house team, following the end of her contract. Nic, is a true professional, not backward in asking the difficult questions in order to get the right solution and not just a solution. Her technical knowledge is also second to none and I would not hesitate in re-engaging her services to help deliver future projects.

Jeremy Cox – Operations Manager GreenWave Packaging

Testimonial

“Utilizing her vast knowledge of the food industry, we can rely on Nic to provide our training needs now and in the future.”

As a company, Fullers Foods is committed in ensuring members of our technical team are appropriately trained in all disciplines commensurate to their roles. This also ensures colleagues share the same vision in ensuring our Quality Culture vision is met. We develop training programmes for new colleagues and carry out refresher training for existing team members across all food safety disciplines from Pest Control Awareness through to Root Cause Analysis.

Fullers Foods have used Nic Sharman consultancy to provide these solutions for our training needs. Through careful collaboration and planning, Nic has created and presented bespoke training packages in multiple subjects that fit the exact needs of our business. Training has been expertly delivered and executed, and feedback from the participants has been excellent.

Alec Witts – Technical Director Fullers Foods Plc

Testimonial

“Nic has been instrumental in building relationships with our customers and enabling new product approval by the FDA so we can export to the USA.”

Nic was brought in as InterimHead of Technical at GreenWave Packaging for a 15-month period. In this time, she has restructured the technical team and introduced another layer to the organisation, supporting the factory to ensure standards are met.

With her knowledge of standards and customer requirements she successfully led the team to develop systems to achieve AA grade BRCGS.

Mike Bennet – Owner GreenWave Packaging

Testimonial

“Nic is most capable and highly experienced - above all, I would thoroughly recommend given her commitment to excellence”

I previously worked alongside with Nic whilst we were heldpositions in the M&S Food Technical Centre, and we also worked together onassociated regulatory compliance projects. Given my own previous food safetyand auditing experience, I could readily see her diligence and excellenttechnical skills. Nic has a 'can do' attitude who throws herself into her workwith enthusiasm.

Peter Wight – Ex M&S Regulatory Affairs Manager

Testimonial

“We have found her ongoing support for our team invaluable and would highly recommend Nic.”

Nic was recommended to us by M&S. She has been instrumental in helping us with our factory redesign and providing expert advice on best practices. This has enabled us to secure a contract with M&S and also pass the new supplier audit.

David Jeffs Callestick Farm Ice cream

Testimonial

“Her auditing skills are first rate and ability to give positive, helpful feedback was exceptional”

We were setting up a company wide manufacturing standard and needed some help in how to interpret and then apply the standards across the business. Having got to that point we were also keen to assess our progress and get feedback on how well the manufacturing standard had been adopted. Nic's experience in both retail and manufacturing linked to her breadth and depth of knowledge across the food industry gave us great insights and guidance on where we needed to focus. Her auditing skills are first rate and ability to give positive, helpful feedback was exceptional and welcomed by the factory teams. The manufacturing standard was very much designed by the company team - the subsequent support, guidance, and advice came entirely from Nic helping us to bring it to life for all functions within the business. Having knowledge and experience is one thing being able to utilise those attributes to get the best possible outcome for the client is another. Nic does this exceptionally well and I would be happy to recommend her to anyone who is looking for someone to enhance their technical performance.

David Jefferies – Ex-Technical Director New England Seafoods International

Testimonial

“What makes Nic unique is her ability to tailor-make solutions for small businesses and her ability to simplify complex concepts for operatives and supervisors to understand the importance of these on the production floor.”

We engaged Nic back in February 2021 to help set us up for our M&S launch in the summer. We didn’t know what to expect or the magnitude of work ahead of us. Nic broke it down for us and served as a coach, a mentor, a reservoir of knowledge. Over the past year, Nic has repeatedly stepped in on several occasions and saved the day with her guidance and advice to support our accelerated growth. We couldn’t be more grateful that we found Nic and have been able to benefit from her mentorship.

Nishita Rai – COO Doughlicious