Food safety, quality and compliance
Practical food safety and quality leadership, when you need it
I'm David Roos. I've spent more than 30 years in food manufacturing and retail quality, including eight years as QA Director for Aldi GB and Ireland. I help food businesses get audit-ready, build capable teams and make sound technical decisions.
Interim or fractional support, on site or online. Based in Nottingham.
- More than 30 years in food manufacturing and retail quality
- Eight years owning Aldi GB and Ireland's crisis programme
- Lead Auditor, Food Safety Level 4, HACCP Level 4
- Project, interim or fractional support
How I can help
Four areas of support, each available as a project, interim cover or regular fractional days.
Strategy
Strategic growth, simplified
Multi-year technical strategy, benchmarking, sustainability and digital compliance, from the person who led the discounter model in retail.
See strategy supportGovernance and compliance
Safe, legal, quality
Audit preparation for BRCGS, SALSA, Red Tractor and retailer standards, compliance systems, and recall and crisis readiness.
Audit coming up? See audit support See governance and complianceDevelopment
Innovation meets precision
Product design, process troubleshooting, supplier quality and benchmarking, with experience at PepsiCo and Aldi.
See product and process developmentTraining and mentoring
Good training changes how people work
Workshops and lecturing built around your people and products, plus mentoring for Operations, Engineering, Quality and Technical staff.
See training and mentoringExperience across manufacturing, the supply chain and all the main UK retailers
- ALDI
- PepsiCo
- Rowan Foods
- Ferndale Foods
- Oscar Mayer
- Natua
- Agritech Innovations
Who I work with
Food manufacturers
SME sites that need audit readiness, stronger technical teams or senior QA cover without a permanent hire.
Audit and training providers
A Lead Auditor and qualified trainer with real plant and retail experience, available to lecture, deliver courses or audit for you.
Food retailers
Supplier assurance, crisis and recall programmes, and technical strategy from someone who has led retail QA.
About David
Advice from the factory floor, not a slide pack
Most of what I share comes from problems that happened on site, in the supply chain, during a recall or in a customer interaction. I apply a commercial lens to technical topics, and I'm clear when I believe an approach won't work.
QC and new product development
Where it started, on the factory floor.
Operational QA and supplier QA
Ingredients and agricultural raw materials.
QA Director, Aldi GB and Ireland
Owned the company's crisis programme for eight years.
Multi-site operations leadership
Directing teams across complex UK operations, working with all the main retailers.
“Client quote goes here.”
Latest insights
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I spent eight years as QA Director at Aldi GB and Ireland. Of everything I took away from that time, the thing I keep coming back to is not a system or…
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Project
A defined piece of work, such as a pre-audit gap analysis or a training programme, with agreed outcomes.
Interim
Senior technical cover during a vacancy, a restructure or a busy audit season.
Fractional
Regular days each month for ongoing support, mentoring and a senior sounding board.
Audit coming up, or a team to develop?
Book a free 30-minute consultation. We'll talk about the problem first, not the service.
Strategy
Strategic growth, simplified
In retail, I led the discounter model that most retailers are now trying to follow, creating and delivering multi-year strategies across Food, Hard Lines, Textiles and Health and Beauty.
In own label manufacturing, I've created and delivered similar multi-year strategies across multi-site businesses, covering food safety, quality, regulatory compliance and sustainability. I can help you develop a new strategy, refresh your existing one, or facilitate a session to define what comes next.
- Multi-year retail strategy across Food, Hard Lines, Textiles and Health and Beauty
- Multi-site own label strategy covering food safety, quality, regulatory and sustainability
- Four years developing and deploying paperless systems for manufacturers
- Brand launches in South Africa and the UK
Benchmarking
Do you know what your competitive benchmark is? What separates their product from yours, and how do you close the gap?
I'll help you choose the right benchmark and identify the gaps between it and your product. Then I'll help you close them, in the factory or with your suppliers.
Discuss your benchmarking challengesStrategy consulting
Experience across NPD, product and process development, raw material supplier management, QA and QC. I've worked internationally on blue-chip branded products, launching market-leading brands in South Africa and the UK.
Most recently I helped a start-up scale up from concept samples by supporting the selection of a contract manufacturer. My experience and wide industry network can help shape your strategy, on a project basis or as a fractional specialist in your business.
Talk about your strategyTechnical and sustainability
As strange as it may sound, technical systems and sustainability are converging. A technical strategy has to consider the impact on sustainable sourcing, certifications and how compliance is measured.
I'll help you shape a technical strategy with sustainability and sustainable practices built in.
Discuss your technical strategyDigital compliance
Developing multi-year retail strategies meant a lot of thought about software solutions, technical service providers and test laboratories.
Over the last four years I've also helped develop and deploy paperless systems for manufacturers. If you're just starting to explore this, I can share what works and help you move faster.
Explore going paperlessPlanning your next strategy?
Book a free 30-minute consultation to talk through where you are and where you want to be.
Governance and compliance
Safe, legal, quality
It's more important than ever to demonstrate clear governance and compliance to customers, regulators and consumers alike.
With over a decade in senior governance and compliance roles, I support businesses at every level, from SLT coaching to hands-on work in the factory.
- Over a decade in senior governance and compliance roles
- Lead Auditor, Food Safety Level 4, HACCP Level 4
- Owned the crisis programme for Aldi GB and Ireland for eight years
- Experience across branded, own label and retail
Paperwork that passes audits, and teams that own food safety
I support the development of the paperwork systems audits require, and how they affect your existing processes. Audits are cross-functional. In a small business one person may wear many hats; in a bigger business, responsibilities need delegating to the right teams.
I help develop the food safety culture in your business, not by being a crutch, but by enabling your teams to positively own food safety.
Audits I can help you prepare for
Retailer and customer standards
Governance
Using experience from branded and own label manufacturing and retail, I'll check your technical processes are robust.
You'll get a gap analysis with a RAG rating and clear areas of focus, then an improvement plan with key deliverables, on a timeline we agree to suit your needs.
Request a gap analysisCompliance systems
Audit compliance is delivered in systems and paperwork like HACCP and internal audits. True compliance comes from teams knowing why they perform a task, and the consequences of getting it wrong, such as complaints or a recall.
From a HACCP rewrite to internal audits, then embedding practices from the SLT to factory operatives through hands-on engagement and, where needed, targeted classroom training.
Recall and crisis management
Planning for and executing a product withdrawal or recall is daunting. I'll help you prepare using experience from retail and manufacturing, including eight years owning the crisis programme for Aldi GB and Ireland.
This isn't theory. It's lived experience and lessons that will resonate with your team.
Three questions to ask yourself
Is your recall manual up to date and live?
Do you know who to contact in the event of a recall?
After a recall, are you ready for scrutiny from regulators, customers and your certification body?
Is your next audit or recall test on the calendar?
Book a free 30-minute consultation and we'll work out what needs attention first.
Governance and compliance: audit support
Audits are easier when the system already works
Whether you're preparing for BRCGS, FSSC 22000 or a similar GFSI-benchmarked audit, or a retailer audit, the aim is the same: your records, policies, procedures and daily activities should give a consistent message of compliance and control.
More than 30 years across manufacturing, supplier QA and retail quality.
Audit preparation for BRCGS, FSSC 22000, SALSA, Red Tractor, MSC/ASC, RSPO, RSPCA and retailer standards
How I can help
From the first gap analysis to closing out the last non-conformance. Use the whole programme or just the parts you need.
Pre-audit gap analysis
Against the standard you're working to, with findings ranked by risk in a clear RAG rating.
A practical action plan
With named owners and dates.
Preparatory audits
Including a walk of the site with your Operations, Engineering, Technical and QA teams.
Ready for the auditor's questions
Preparation for the questions auditors are most likely to ask, and a clear view of the activities that could lead to a non-conformance.
On site with you
Support during the audit, and help closing out non-conformances.
Support that fits your audit calendar
Bring me in ahead of a single audit, or keep a senior auditor's eye on your site all year.
Interim
Focused support in the run-up to an audit, or cover while you recruit.
Fractional
Regular days on a set schedule, so the system keeps working between audits.
Common questions
Is the consultation really free?
Yes. It's 30 minutes, by video or phone, with no obligation to go further.
Which audits can you help with?
BRCGS, FSSC 22000, SALSA and other GFSI-benchmarked standards, Red Tractor, MSC/ASC, RSPO and RSPCA, plus retailer standards including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose and M&S.
Can you be on site during the audit itself?
Yes. I can support your team on the day and help close out any non-conformances afterwards.
Can you help on an ongoing basis?
Yes. Support can be interim, or fractional on a regular basis, depending on your needs.
Audit on the horizon?
Tell me which standard you're working to and when the audit is due, and we'll plan from there.
Product and process development
Innovation meets precision
I've developed and launched products, commissioned lines and troubleshot existing products and lines in South Africa and the UK.
I'll bring that product and process knowledge to bear and help you deliver consistent, high-quality products to your customers and consumers.
- Product launches and line commissioning in South Africa and the UK
- Sensory, shelf-life, process and packing trials
- Own label product design to customer KQI thresholds
- Benchmarking experience at PepsiCo and Aldi
Product design
In NPD, I've developed products from marketing and customer briefs, and completed complex sensory and shelf-life assessments alongside process and packing trials.
More recently, in own label, I've used this knowledge to improve product designs so they meet customer Key Quality Indicator thresholds.
Discuss a product design challengeProcess
Process is about making a product consistently within customer-defined parameters, whether it's high-risk chilled or ambient shelf-stable. That means the right raw material supply, process design and process execution.
Sometimes the cause of a process problem isn't obvious. I can help you troubleshoot it.
Get help troubleshooting a processBenchmarking
Working in businesses like PepsiCo and Aldi, you pay a lot of attention to product design. At PepsiCo it's about making sure you exceed the competitor's product. In retail, it's about being like the brands but cheaper.
I can support your benchmarking programme from either side of that table.
Talk about benchmarkingSupplier quality
Working in supplier quality assurance, I've identified supplier process issues that were affecting final product quality.
If inconsistent raw materials or supplier processes are showing up in your finished product, I can help you find the cause and fix it at source.
Discuss supplier qualityProduct or process challenge?
Book a free 30-minute consultation and talk it through with someone who's solved it before.
Training, lecturing and mentoring
Good training changes how people work, not just what they know
Training, workshops and mentoring built around the people in the room and the products they make, from more than 30 years in food manufacturing and retail quality.
Training and workshop topics
Pitched at supervisors, technical teams or senior management. On site, online, or as part of a wider training programme.
HACCP and HACCP review
Food safety
Ambient, ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook, poultry and high-risk products.
Allergen management
Product recall and crisis management
Audits: planning, leading and preparing to win
Food safety culture
Digital compliance
Where the material comes from
Most of what I teach comes from problems that happened on site, in the supply chain, during a recall or in a customer interaction, not from a generic slide pack.
QC and new product development, then operational QA and supplier QA for ingredients and agricultural raw materials, then QA Director for Aldi GB and Ireland, where I owned the company's crisis programme for eight years. Since then I've directed teams across complex multi-site UK operations working with all the main retailers.
30+
years in food manufacturing and retail quality
It starts with the problem, not the course
Before anything is booked, we work through four steps together.
Discovery
Who needs the training, what they do now, where improvement is needed, and what may have gone wrong or nearly gone wrong.
Review
Operational culture, procedures, audit reports, complaint and incident records, and recall history that show where knowledge is missing.
Outcomes
The specific changes you want to see in behaviour, decisions, records and audits after the training.
Agreement
A short written proposal confirming audience, outcomes and format before any session is designed.
You approve everything before delivery
Each course is written up as a course specification and a set of session plans, ready for your audit file.
Course specification
Audience and entry requirements, learning outcomes, content and assessment approach, delivery format and duration, materials, and how attendance and competence will be recorded.
Session plans
A timed running order, activities and discussion points, examples drawn from your own products and processes, and checks that confirm understanding before the session closes.
Participants leave with working tools they can use the following week.
Mentoring
Technical knowledge is only useful if people can apply it on the line
A sounding board with real plant and retail experience for your Operations, Engineering, Hygiene, Quality and Technical staff.
Typical topics include recurring complaints, major audit non-conformances, food safety culture, and moving into a more senior role.
How it works
- We agree the goals together at the start.
- Regular sessions focus on real, current challenges your team is facing.
- I share what can work and review alternatives, and I'm clear when I believe an approach won't work.
- A commercial lens on technical topics, to help colleagues understand different points of view and competing priorities.
Lecturing and associate work
For audit and training providers
Looking for an experienced lecturer or associate trainer? I'm a qualified trainer and Lead Auditor with more than 30 years of plant and retail experience. Get in touch to discuss lecturing, course delivery or associate work.
Qualifications
Let's talk about your team
A free 30-minute consultation to understand who needs support and what needs to change.
Contact
Book a free 30-minute consultation
On video or phone with David Roos. Tell me a little about your business and what you'd like to discuss.
- Understand where you are and what's in the way
- Hear how similar food businesses solved it
- Leave with a clear next step, with no hard sell
You'll speak to David Roos
30+ years in food manufacturing and retail quality. Former QA Director, Aldi GB and Ireland.
Other ways to get in touch
Phone: +44 (0) 7776 319530
Email: david.roos@ukwazi.co.uk
Hours: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
LinkedIn: Connect with David
Based in Nottingham, working on site or online.
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