June 2018 -

Food Safety Specialists in St. Paul/Minneapolis, MN

The Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA) requires that any company importing food products from overseas suppliers to have a Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) in place to analyze suppliers to ensure proper food safety. Do you have a program in place yet? If not, the time is now!

The general compliance date for having a properly set up FSVP was May 30, 2017.

FSMA-Compliance timeline v11

This means that should the FDA come in to inspect your records related to importing from a foreign supplier, all the necessary documentation is in place. With respect to the FSMA and FSVP, the FDA’s immediate goal is to “educate before it regulates”. However, if your program is not in place and a large food safety contamination occurs, expect fines and potential shut down of operations to happen rather quickly.

If you do not yet have a program in place or do not know how the FSMA affects you, rest assured that many companies in the food industry are in the same position. Many food companies I speak with, especially in regards to trading or brokerage firms, are not yet ready for an FDA inspection. They do not yet comprehend that the FSMA now applies to them if they are listed as the ‘importer of record’ on the bills of lading. Trading companies are now ‘shippers’ with regards to the FSMA and have many more responsibilities under this law than ever before.

Rest assured that there is still time to get a fully compliant program in place to ensure compliance with the FDA regulations. The beauty of the new law is that while there are general guidelines towards compliance, the law leaves much leeway to companies to ensure their programs fully protect the American public from potential food safety issues.

Whether you have a program set up, are not sure if you need a program, or want help in setting up your FSMA compliance program, reach out to Ramey Consulting, LLC today! We have set up FSMA compliance programs in the past, are PCQI and FSVP certified and can help your company set up its compliance program.

Reach out to:
Matthew Ramey
MRamey@RameyConsultingLLC.com
651-317-9675

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Welcome to Ramey Consulting. We are experts in the areas of operations and finance.

One question we like to ask our clients is, “Are you doing more with less?”

In this day and age of improved technologies, it is easier than ever to increase operational effeciences to gain economies of scale. We find that it takes a certain type of mindset to think in this manner and though many employees are eager to help improve a company’s operations, they might lack the expertise or know-how to take it to the next level.

This is where Ramey Consulting comes in to help. We pride ourselves on our ability to help companies realize improvements in their operations so that employees are freed up to focus on bigger and better tasks.

These are only a few of the areas we focus in on when helping your company:

For repeatable processes: does your company have a system in place and templates built to make the process easy and scaleable?
For Excel documents: do your employees spend more time putting together a spreadsheet than actually analyzing and digging into the data? Do they know about macros? Or Visual Basic Editor?
For everyday processes: do you have processes and procedures written out in a clear and concise manner so that if an employee left or became sick for a period of time, there would be no transition lag?

These are three question we would ask your company to ascertain where and how to make improvements. We find that these questions, when answered in a detailed and thorough manner, can help your company develop and grow and improve its operations to help grow it to the next level.

We enjoy working with businesses of all sizes. No matter if you are a small, medium, or large organization, we are confident that we can help. Reach out today for a free consultation on how Ramey Consulting can help your business grow today!