Kate Holmes - SALSA mgr - Biddenden Vineyards

We have worked with Sarah now for over 2 years, easy and great to work with, supporting us with the SALSA accreditation, helping put systems in to place to manage our audits, she is very thorough and her knowledge is vast. We would definitely recommend her for any support or training needed

 

Business owner-founder of Simply Ice cream

I would highly recommend Sarah for any help and advice you might need with technical and specialist support.  She is extremely thorough in her approach and more than delivers, she is diligent, organised and efficient with great attention to detail.  Have loved working with her for over ten years now.

Managing Director - www.thejuiceexecutive.co.uk and www.thinkfoods.co.uk

We have worked with Sarah for almost a decade, and she has supported our business growth with technical guidance and assurance in many different areas. Having supported us with our first certifications (SALSA and Soil Association), Sarah has very detailed knowledge of our business and our needs. Sarah was extremely helpful throughout our purpose build project, helping to guide our factory design and flow. Sarah is always a reassuring presence for our team on site, as well as third party auditors and customers and has helped to encourage and nurture a true Food Safety Culture. Sarah has really helped us to improve our systems, quality and training over time and always ensures commercial considerations are balanced. On a persona level Sarah is an absolute pleasure to work with and we really enjoy her being part of our team.

SALSA Food Labelling Training Course

Today’s workshop was very helpful. Sarah is an excellent presenter and made me feel very comfortable and happy to participate. All my questions were answered in a very clear and professional way. I would definitely recommend this workshop to anyone struggling with food labelling.

Candidate feedback from an Internal Auditing Course

"Easy going and not hard to follow. It's going to help me to add more detail to my audits and help improve communication with other departments."

"I most liked the small group and informal discussions. The training will help me to understand more about the auditing process, major and minor non conformances and improve my auditing templates. "

"The training can easily be transferred to Health and Safety. I will use it to improve the auditing process and procedures working alongside technical and compliance functions."

Mar Marti, Category Technical Mgr. at Rodanto

I have worked with Sarah over the past 24 months and I found that her knowledge, dedication and experience have been crucial when I tried to implement the BRC Global Food Safety Standard in the Company that I work for. The business has not only improved the grade to AA, but Sarah has worked hard to teach the whole team the importance of Food Safety Standard implemented at all times. Being very practical and having the ability to motivate the team, I would highly recommend Sarah to everyone who wants to understand the value and implication of the BRC Food Safety Certification system.

Alice Brown, Head of Quality and Planning at Gousto

Sarah's extensive knowledge of the food industry means she can offer advice in many areas of food safety and legislation. She has been flexible and a reassuring advisor. 
Sarah delivered HACCP and Level 2 Food Safety training for colleagues, using examples from our specific processes to make for a much more engaging and memorable course.
 

Lisa Gardshol, Main Partner The Savanna Group

Sarah recently delivered an in house food labelling course for us. It was good to incorporate our current food labelling issues into the session ,the training will help us in reviewing different packaging in the future.

Alex Rogers, General Manager at Modern Standard Coffee

We used Sarah to deliver in house RSPH Level 2 HACCP training. We particularly liked the relation to our own business in the teaching and look forward to being able to apply the learnings to improve our SALSA food safety system in the future. Further candidate feedback included " Training delivered was clear and concise" ; "this will provide us with the opportunity to improve our own production facility and practices " ; "Engaging" ; " help us become more diligent"

Clare Sykes, Co-Founder of Popcorn Kitchen

Sarah is a great help in navigating the minefield that is labelling regulations. She checks labels quickly, offers easy to follow feedback and most importantly for a small business is reasonably priced! I wouldn’t dream of sending any packaging to print without getting Sarah’s opinion first-the cost of new packaging is so high, you really can’t afford to make a mistake and have to reprint!

Alex Auger, Founder of THINK Press

We worked with Sarah in our preparation for the SALSA accreditation this year. Our mentoring day was held on site at our juicing facility and was very hands on which was immensely helpful in making the SALSA standard relevant to us. Sarah made a real effort to understand the practical side of our business as well as our paperwork, and helped us develop a strategy for implementing new systems and improving current ones. We followed up our mentoring with an in house HACCP Level 2 Training Day for the whole of our team. Sarah made the training engaging and very relevant to our specific production process which made all the difference. There has been a noticeable difference in the team since the training, and we feel like it has had a practical and positive impact rather than simply ‘box ticking’. Thank you!

Oliver Tingley, Technical manager at Kent Potato Group

"I organised for Howarth Food Safety to complete two tier HACCP training for our HACCP Team with the main group undertaking Level 2 and then myself and a colleague, who lead the team ,completing Level 3. The training was extremely professional and fluid, completing the first part in a large group and the second core personal to our requirements with a small group. I would recommend Sarah and will use her again in the future"

Gary Bartlett, Company Director at Bush Grub

"We have used Sarah to ensure our packaging complies to the new food labelling requirements that come into force in December 2014. The whole process was efficient and fast. Following a visit from trading standards I was ensured that our new packaging was perfect and 100% compliant."

Anna Ghee, CEO SNOG Frozen Yoghurt

"Sarah has been one of the best investments we have made this year. She was able to immediately make an impact by smartly prioritising our objectives and by engaging our employees. We now have a robust tool box of resources, road map for the future and well trained, motivated team."

Sally Newall, MD of Simply Ice Cream Limited

"Sarah is great to work with, her knowledge is extensive and she is extremely efficient, consistently delivering any projects speedily and to a high standard - I would thoroughly recommend her."

Michael Burrell, Operations Manager Unipet International

"Sarah has a very good knowledge and experience of BRC Food Safety Systems and was able to answer all questions put forward with ease. The information provided was very clear. All activities were delivered to the correct time scales and I would recommend services without hesitation.
I could not be happier with the outcome and am very pleased with the service.   
Going forward we would like to keep Sarah involved in all aspects of our BRC program and the training required in gaining the accreditation."

Devin Chohan, Partner at Thirst Quenchers

"We all know how mundane training courses can be but speaking on behalf of our company; I found the course held by Sarah to be engaging, precise and enlightening.  Not only was the course run on time, but Sarah was receptive and took the course at pace that everyone was able to learn. The part that I value the most is that she was willing to spend time after the course to go over specific questions that I had which were maybe too specific to ask during the day. Thank you again."

Candidate feedback from a SALSA Food Labelling Workshop

"The presenter was excellent"
"Very happy with the whole workshop - thank you Sarah"
"Probably saved me a fortune. Really useful, very happy"
"Fantastic teacher. She was engaging and easy to learn from. Really enjoyed it and will be useful going forward."

RSPH Food Safety for Manufacturing Level 2 training for Simply Ice Cream

"Very informative course. I learnt a lot about the food production industry as well as the ‘common sense’ aspect. Thank you."
Sarah McCarthy, Simply Ice Cream

"I have widened my knowledge so much,this will help me in the factory"
Millie Selling, Simply Ice Cream

Paul Deboe, Vice President Corporate Engineering & reliability at Cargill

"I worked with Sarah Howarth (2004 till 2009) for our Cargill European Based crush and grain origination, biodiesel and veg oil refinery business. Sarah joined us in 2004 and established a new team that handled our food safety and QA program. Extensive work was done on the supply chain for our origination business, handling our grains improving the understanding and mitigation (building layers of protection) managing risk/hazard (chemical, micro, FM). Sarah had great personal effectiveness handling our journey during the starter-builder phase of our new team."

Richard Hallett MBE, MAS Supply Chain Specialist (Food Sector) at Grant Thornton LLP

"Sarah is conversant with the new 2014 labelling regulations and has shown the ability to make a complex subject understandable and manageable even for non-technical food business managers.  That is especially welcomed by SME food business owners, and they appreciate the fact that Sarah is able to work cost-effectively with any size of company however small."

RSPH Food Hygiene Level 2 training for SNOG Frozen Yoghurt

"Good Course and teacher. Nice to refresh my previous training."
Dan Rossell, Venue Manager SNOG Frozen Yoghurt

"Course material was very clear and well structured in order to cover all the different aspects as wide as possible."
Simona Paulauskaite, Retail Manager SNOG Frozen Yoghurt

Richard Ratcliffe, President, Instutute of Food Science and Technology

"Sarah is a passionate and enthusiastic professional with the skill to apply all that she experienced working for blue chip multinationals to the needs of smaller operators in the food chain. Not everyone can do this: individuals emerge from large outfits with a silo mentality and cannot relate to any operation with less than a $1billion turnover. Not so Sarah – with her pleasant smile and confident approach she will provide solutions to the smallest company’s biggest problems."

RSPH HACCP Level 2 training for Lycored UK

"Expertise of the trainer was very good. Examples given were tailored to our needs whenever possible, whilst still giving insight on other industries & possible problems they may have. The course met our HACCP Level 2 training requirements and was excellent value for money. Having the course on site for the whole team was much more valuable to us than having to send the team to more expensive outside training courses. It was the quickest and most cost efficient option for us. Very friendly support and training. Very flexible with the day schedule and the team present."
Fanny Crossley, Operational and Quality CSR Manager

Other feedback from the course:

"Course trainer was superb. Easy to follow with good materials and props."
Russ Philips, Engineer

"Very good course for an introductory overview. Principles of the subject are much more clear now and Sarah was informative and knowledgeable."
Jo-Ann Newton, Supply Chain Manager

Donna Tresadern, MD of No Added Salt, ready meals entrepreneur

"Sarah’s experience and knowledge has actually been quite frightening! We would not feel safe or equipped moving forward with this project without her on board, she has become a valuable member of this team very quickly. Sarah thinks outside of the box so when any information is sent it covers not only what you have asked for but alternative or additional information that could be of help. The information is laid out clearly and is easy to follow."

RSPH Food Hygiene Level 2 training for Planet Coconut

"Course interesting. Encourages group discussion."
Eddie Stride, Planet Coconut

"I found the course and Sarah very helpful and open to discussion for a greater understanding of SALSA and HACCP."
Lynn Nicholson, Technical Support Officer, Planet Coconut

J Ralph Blanchfield MBE, Adjunct Professor of Food Science & Human Nutrition, Michigan State University

"During the four years to date in which Sarah Howarth has served with me on the IFST Scientific Committee (previously known as the Technical & Legislative Committee), she has made valuable contributions to its discussions and its work of drafting and approving IFST Information Statements. I have the highest regard both for her scientific knowledge and her ability to utilise it effectively."

Matt Avery, Experienced Chef at The Vine, Goudhurst

"Very well presented and informative. Easy to follow and build understanding reinforcing knowledge of Level 2 Food Safety."

Jean-Jacques Papi, Raw materials quality assurance manager Europe, Cargill

"- excellent knowledge in food/feed satey, ag businesses - real leadership, close to the team and able to get the best from all of us - excellent communicator: strategic thought translated into actions plan - humble, close to people, easy to get with, good balance personal and professional life... Together with Sarah, we've been working at the start of the Product Assurance Team within Cargill, and it's been a great experience to start almost from scratch and to build within 4 years time an efficient, robust team with network across Europe, including purchase offices, crush and refinery plants. Definitely a person you'd like to work with and to lead a team. Maybe our roads will cross again in the future. All the best!"

Claire-Lise Bechert, Deputy Director General, FEDIOL, the EU Vegetable Oil and Proteinmeal Industry - Belgium

"As Deputy Chair of the FEDIOL Product Safety and Consumer Affairs working group Sarah has been a great asset to the European Trade Association, by providing valuable technical expert advice and support as well as political guidance on how to tackle safety-related issues. It has been a great pleasure working with Sarah."