Standards
The grade, the date, and who was watching.
An audit grade on its own is marketing. The useful version is the standard, the issue, the grade, the month and whether anybody knew we were coming.
BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9, grade AA. Audited March 2026, unannounced.
Unannounced means the auditor arrived on a working day of their choosing and saw the site as it runs. We publish the month because a grade without one ages quietly.
The position, in full
Five answers you would otherwise have to ask for.
| Position | Detail | |
|---|---|---|
| Audit standard | BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9, grade AA | Graded AA at an unannounced audit in March 2026. |
| Additional schemes | SALSA and Red Tractor | SALSA covers the two ambient lines. Red Tractor covers UK-sourced vegetables. |
| Traceability | Full trace within 2 hours | Forward and backward, to raw material lot. Tested quarterly, not assumed. |
| Allergen control | Nut-free site | Gluten-containing lines are physically segregated from the rest. |
| Testing | 14 tests per production day | On-site micro lab, with independent verification monthly. |
The micro lab. 14 tests every production day, verified independently monthly.
Traceability
Two hours, and we prove it four times a year.
A trace is forward and backward, from a raw material lot to every pallet it reached and from any pallet back to the lot. The two-hour figure is the tested one, not the target: quarterly the exercise is run cold on a lot chosen by the technical manager, and the result is written down whether it is good or not.
Chosen by us, run against the clock, written down.
If a trace ever failed to close inside the window, the customers on that lot would hear it from us first. That has not been needed, which is a fact about the last few years and not a promise about the next ones.
Allergens
What the site does and does not handle.
The nut-free position is a site position, not a line position, so it does not depend on a changeover being done properly. It also means we will turn down work rather than lose it.
Nuts
None on site, in any form, in any ingredient. We decline briefs that would change that.
Gluten
Handled, on lines that are physically separated from the rest, with their own intake, staff flow and wash-down.
Declaration
Every specification carries the allergen position of the line it runs on, not of the site as a whole.
Testing
The lab is on site, and it is checked by somebody else.
An in-house lab that nobody audits is a lab that agrees with the factory. Ours sends samples out every month and the two sets of results are compared.
14
micro tests every production day, on site
2
hours to a full forward and backward trace
4
times a year the trace is tested rather than assumed
1
monthly independent verification of the lab's own results
Send the technical questions first.
Specifications, audit reports and the allergen position go to the technical mailbox, which is read by a technologist.