Alimenti Blog – The Core
Welcome to The Core -the blog and updates from Louise . I hope that you enjoy reading it.
There will also be a series of articles and posts on the website which I will be reviewing regularly. The blog archive is here. If you would like to connect with me on LinkedIn, my profile is here. Let’s start a conversation.
April 2022
The horrific events in Ukraine continue. I have written a new blog about mistakes made when growing your business.
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March 2022
The horrific events in Ukraine made me reconsider a lot of things, both professionally and personally. The theme for the month was reflection.
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February 2022
The theme for the month is Growing your business by working with larger businesses.
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January 2022
The theme for the month is HACCP.
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November 2021
I have started to create themes for the month’s for the newsletter and social media posts. If you would like to recieve the monthy Core Newsletter from Alimenti, sign up here.
October 2021
Natasha’s Law became law in the UK on 1st October 2021. Louise won an award for Customer Care at the SMBN Awards evening. Read more on the Awards page.
July 2021
I have labelled my first products! Not that I am about to go into business producing food and drink. These are for my daughter’s wedding reception in August. They look beautiful, but the hand labelling was a tricky endeavor. Getting everything straight was not an easy thing to do.
My hat has been created and it will be revealed in August. The hat was designed and created by a local milliner called Gilly’s Millinery. You can find her amazing creations on Facebook.
I have signed up to be an Enterprise Advisor at a school in Redditch starting in September. It’s very exciting. I have also been interviewed for a podcast which will be published in early August. I will post the link once it is made public.
I have also published Alimenti’s mission statement and values that we work by. You can read them here.
Lastly Alimenti is on the move. The admin address is moving to Worcester into The Kiln in Copenhagen Street.
May 2021
I am due to be vaccinated for the second time, as well as receive lateral flow test kits for when I have site visits.
My diary is filling up with client calls and site visits. Since I received my BRCGS lead auditor qualification and RPFAM accreditation from IFST, I have had lots of interest from potential clients.
In my personal life, my eldest daughter is getting married in August and we are excited that the restrictions may be lifted enough to allow the day to go ahead. I have been busy sourcing stationery for her, using Canva to design the “save the date!” magnets, which I ordered from Sticker Mule. I have used Sticker Mule to create coasters and keyrings for promotional materials several times and always been very happy with the products. We have also been deciding on my outfit (including a hat). I will share pictures of the big day on social media, but needless to say, we are very excited!
March 2021
I received my COVID 19 vaccination amid a storm of arguments between the EU and British Governments over the supply of vaccines to the UK from European manufacturing sites.
February 2021
I was quoted in the Express! Here is the link to the article.
January 2021
Guardian Hub was launched to support food and drink business owners to get their businesses inspection ready. For more information click here.
Blog Archive is here
Growing your food business mistake 5
Growing your food and drink business mistake 5: How is the health of your HACCP Plan or study? Growing your business mistake 5 is about having an out of date or missing HACCP Plan or studyDoes your HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) folder sit on the shelf...
Growing your business mistake 4
Growing your business mistake 4: Little understanding of routes to market or volumes. Growing your business mistake 4 is little understanding of routes to market or volumes nor how the goods will be delivered to the customers site.Do you understand the potential...
Growing your business mistake 3
Growing your business mistake 3: Insufficient research. Growing your business mistake 3 is Insufficient or No Customer Research.Research your potential customer 's pain points. Understand their reasons for lookingfor a new product or supplier. Which is it (Product or...
Grow your business mistake 2
Grow your business mistake 2: Ask for the food safety standard. Grow your business mistake 2 is not getting hold of the potential customer's food safety standard. Some businesses make these freely available to download,. Others will only share once you have started...
Grow your business mistake #1
Grow your business mistake 1: You click "Agree" without reading and understanding what you are agreeing to. Growing your business mistake 1 is clicking without reading the document behind the button. We have all done it (hands up! I have too). What am I talking...
Food safety inspections and audits
Food Safety Inspections and auditsBefore the food safety inspection or audit Do the words food safety inspection or audit fill you with a feeling of panic and /or dread? Or turn you into a sleepless mess at 3am Maybe bring you out in a sweat? Or make you snappy and a...
Samples
When you are sending samples to a laboratory, you need to tell the laboratory exactly what information you require on the certificate of analysis. Of course you know that the three types of sauce had no preservative, preservative 1 and preservative 2 in them....
Natasha’s Law
Natasha's Law became law in October 2021 in the UK. The Food Information Amendment Regulations 2019 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with similar legislation in Scotland, came into force on 1st October 2021.The amendment means that any food placed on the...
Shelf life of chilled food
Shelf life of chilled food The words used for the shelf life of food after production are either ‘Use By’ or ‘Best Before’ in the UK. We are looking at chilled shelf life products or fresh products in this blog. These have the "Use By" shelf life which is all about...
Shelf life of food part one
The words used for the shelf life of food after production are either ‘Use By’ or ‘Best Before’ in the UK. A very few products may not have a defined shelf life, such as salt and sugar.Use By The product must be consumed by the ‘Use By’ the date applied to the pack....