Over 3 years ago I sat down and wrote out a business plan. I knew I wanted a team– but not too big. I hate bureaucracy and I especially hate meetings. I wanted to earn enough the first few years to be able to invest in scaling the educational/ coaching/ training/ mentoring aspect of the business. And here I am. Here we are!

These past 3 years have shown me that there is a dearth of meaningful education and training for people who found themselves in food safety roles, especially in medium sized companies. People who know a 5 log reduction is better than 2 logs, but still aren’t quite sure what this means. People who aren’t certain of the difference between Listeria spp and mono, and how to interpret a ‘presumptive’. Webinars are great. 1-2 day trainings are great. But they are not enough. Yet no one has time for a 4 year degree (and honestly I wish I could’ve replaced food chemistry with epi!).

It’s been a year since my last update on the world of consulting. I re-read some of my old posts– the first being at my 2 week, 2 month,  a year as a food safety consultant and another at the 1.5 year mark.  I re-read my business plan. Things have changed but our commitment to supporting food safety professionals has not.

I’m happy to report that I think I am finally settling in. With a superb team in place, we’ve got excellent technical coverage, from farm to retail/foodservice and from regulatory to scientific. And we have the support handling accounting, IT, scheduling etc. so that we can maximize our value and efficiency. I’m thankful that I get to spend more of my time doing the work that I love- digging in on food safety issues for food companies and the associations that represent them.

As I reflect on the past 3 years I’m pretty proud of myself! I am not a natural risk taker (like most food safety people. We tend to be pretty risk averse). I never would have described myself as an entrepreneur. But here I am, and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.

First, what do I love about having a food safety consulting firm?

I love the autonomy and flexibility. I get to choose the work we do– the things that are most interesting to us, and the people we want to work with. Every year I’ve reflected on the clients and projects from the past year and sort them into at least 3 piles: ones I’ve loved, ones I haven’t, and ones that were…fine. (today, we do this as a team). The scientist in me then looks for trends and patterns- what is it that lands some in the ‘love’ pile and not others? It’s really helped us refine how we select the projects we’ll take on and the types of individuals where we see the potential to make a difference. We are part of a program for women consultants that’s made us realize that it’s good to create the capacity to do MORE of what I (and the team) loves. 

So, what kinds of services have we settled upon?

Consulting is a broad term. It’s loosely defined and spans everything. We don’t do everything. Our scope is pretty tight. Here’s what we’re not:

• We’re not fractional FSQA support. We realize companies may need this kind of temporary help, and can provide referrals, but that’s not what we do. We support your existing team

• We’re not contractors. Similar to fractional FSQA, we’re not a firm that does something tactical, like write your food safety plan using a prefab template (or even worse, AI), and walks away. We strongly believe companies shouldn’t outsource their key food safety needs. Instead, we grow that capability within your team.

• We’re not seagulls (I just learned this term from my dear friend Melanie Neumann). We don’t come in, poop on everything and fly away leaving you to clean up the mess.

• We’ve moved away from working with service providers so we can focus on working with food companies and associations.

My epiphany while writing this is that we support food safety by supporting food safety professionals. At times I’ve joked I’m a ‘food safety therapist’. Food safety is a hard job. It’s never the profit center for the company. Many companies view it as a compliance necessity. We help those that want to move beyond checking the box. With 3 years under our belt we have the systems in place to provide targeted support, whether on the proactive side or when the unexpected happens. 

What’s next for us?

I recently read that about half of independent consultants go back to a traditional role within 5 years. At this point, we’re a small company, not just a solo-preneur, but still, we’re no McKinsey (actually, the tenure there is even less). While I always reserve the right to change my mind, at this point I cannot imagine doing anything else. I expect our team size to remain stable, but our services will grow.

In addition to doing what we do -gut checking food safety plans and regulatory interpretations, and, when needed, being there during a crisis and aiding recovery in the aftermath – we’ve got more in store. 

Over the past 6 months I’ve invested in the team so that we can build out our educational offerings. We see similar needs throughout the industry– foundational food micro , distinguishing hazard from risk, managing risks in supply chains, constructing sampling and testing programs, designing environmental monitoring programs– and we’re developing a hybrid program that maintains our high touch, personalized approach while managing costs, efficiency, and flexibility. We feel most successful when food safety teams feel confident that they can handle things themselves as a result of the guidance we’ve provided (maybe not the best business model– but it’s part of our core values).

I want to thank all of the clients who’ve enabled me to grow and support a great team, all of the friends and colleagues who believed in me, and those that I’ve gotten to know over the past few years. There are definitely days when I get nervous about the future but mostly I’m excited and extremely thankful.