Consultancy Services

FoodWrite Ltd is a consultancy owned by Dr Alastair Sansome-Smith PhD MIFST MIFT. It employs seasoned professionals in food and beverage science. 

• Over 33 years experience in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) environment and offering extensive skills and competencies as a technical consultant to food businesses of whatever size and hue. 
• Preparation of marketing material for assorted food businesses, white papers, application notes, technical articles and blogs.
• Development of food and beverage opportunities for a range of businesses  by accelerating product development,  promoting growth, resolving issues and reducing their costs. The consultancy has successfully improved the financial bottom line of a range of businesses – small, single concerns through to large FMCG companies.

Our customers are typically suppliers of food related technologies, processing, ingredients and products. We provide expertise and resource on projects. Our aim is to  improve the performance and profitability of businesses, whilst developing their technical knowledge and understanding. Whatever your situation, we tailor our support to the client.

Contract work and temporary positions through 3rd-party organisations is also undertaken if this is more desirable.   

As a member of Acumentia we can also use our extensive network of contacts in the food industry to source additional expertise for projects. Sourcing funds and research information for projects is also a specialty. The company recently won a number of grant competitions associated with the Technology Strategy Board.

Use our services to develop and launch new ideas and explore new horizons for your business.

 

 

Take a look at the bottom of the page and the case studies page for examples of the projects that have been undertaken.

KEY CONSULTANCY SERVICES:

♦ Advice on exploiting innovative ideas based on market review (supply chain initiatives, novel processing methods, optimisation processes, etc.)

♦ Literature surveys, value dossiers and content writing especially for web-sites – scientific, clinical, technical and business information

♦ Infographics

♦ Research writing and reports for academics and commercial business, white papers, technical papers and material for copyright purposes.

♦ Ingredient selection – application, functionality and nutrition

♦ New product and recipe development, with costings and shelf-life prediction.

♦ Analytical techniques reviewed in conjunction with third party manufacturers and suppliers.

♦ Technology scouting and product opportunity assessment

♦ Manufacturing scale-up and optimisation of processes 

♦ Preparation of Phase I and II European Union proposals for research grants (H2020/Eurostars/Eureka!/Euratom). Assessment of EIC research proposals (Phase 1 & 3).

♦ Blog articles and posts for web-sites covering scientific, clinical and technical information.

♦ Product documentation and specifications for third party manufacturing

♦ Marketing claims, regulatory and legislative  assessment

♦ Statistics: descriptive, business and project analysis, and experimental design including

♦ Project management, working with multi-functional teams to ensure milestones met and to budget 

♦ Research project investigation, validation and verification

♦ Market research on existing use & novel technologies, ingredients and food products in conjunction with third party analysts.

♦ Technical and commercial support writing, manuscripts, brochures and newsletters with articles suited to publication in both trade and scientific press

♦ Protocols/protocol amendments

♦ Standard operating procedures (SOPs) and written working practices.

♦ Regulatory submission summary documents

♦ Workshops: ingredients, product development, product science etc.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE:

♣ Beverages: carbonated & non-carbonated, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, ready to drink (RTD), concentrates, thermal and non-thermal processing technologies for beverages.

♣ Confectionary: fudges, chocolate products.

♣ Dairy: milk products, iced coffee, smoothie and yogurt drinks

♣ Emulsions: flavour emulsions and their stabilisation, nanoemulsions, analysis and sensory assessment

♣ Food and dietary supplements especially sports nutrients

♣ Fruit: novel fruits especially for South America and South-East Asia, fruit juices and formats such as pulps, concentrates, smoothies, clarified juices and nectars

♣ Fruit juice processing: conventional and novel techniques. (e.g. maceration, enzyming, aroma recovery and evaporation, storage)

♣ Snacks: creation and preparation of snack products including extruded goods, the use of raw materials such as chickpeas, popcorn etc.

♣ Ingredients: acids, cannabis ingredients and actives (CBD), carbohydrates especially starch use and chemistry, colours, emulsifiers, fats and oils (dietary and frying), flavours, fibres (fibers) and pectins, dietary minerals, thickeners and stabilisers, preservatives, proteins, sweeteners including Stevia, sugars and other carbohydrates, vitamins

♣ Novel process technologies: high pressure processing, pulsed electric field processing, steam cooking, new cooking and frying techniques, microwave vacuum drying all complementing more traditional thermal processes.

♣ Powder handling and resolving issues with clumping, agglomeration and deliquescence.

♣ Nutritional foods: dietary supplements, sports nutrition products (beverages, bars, powders, milks), fortified and nutritionally modified foods

♣ Bioactives including extraction and product use

♣ Packaging and closures suitability, especially novel materials and their interactions with ingredients and products

♣ Sensory assessments

♣ Agricultural and Agronomy: soft-fruit growing, citrus fruit growing, food products, drones, tracking devices, food storage

♣ Process control and SPC, On-line and off-line process analysis including mid-infra red technology

♣ Biochemical engineering processes especially anaerobic digesters and protein production through fermentation. Notable projects include work on xanthan gum.

♣ Downstream processing of proteins and their purification for preparative purposes.

♣ Regulatory aspects and applications advice including elements of intellectual property (IP) and to support product labels. Recent projects include preparation of supporting patent interpretation for US Patent Attorneys (3 examples can be given), USA based legislation especially various CFR aspects (babyfood), European Food Contact Material Legislation. Other regulatory activities regard alcohol legislation in Europe and the UK

♣ CIEH Level 4 Food Safety Management In Manufacturing. Now offering Level 2 training in Food Safety Management

♣ Personal license

RECENT PROJECT ACTIVITY: 

Recently completed briefs not covered as case studies in product development, regulatory or technical analysis  include (all approved following arrangement to provide generic data for web-site):

♦ Use of starches and fiber in oat-based snacks (2017-2019) including a consultancy on starch applications in porridge oats (2020)

♦ Edible oil quality analysis – review on oil analysis and quality control through processing. Examination of various levels of detection during the frying process including, IR, NIR and other non-traditional techniques. Specific references on antioxidant detection and changes during processing (2020)

♦ Cheese melt applications in food product manufacturing – challenges and trends in the snack food industry (2020)

♦ Quality assurance and safety issues in fermentation processes. Causes of failure and methods to ameliorate situations where safety becomes an issue. Issue resolution and review for a US membrane manufacturer (2020)

♦ Resolving a foaming issue of a mousse including addition of antifoams, methods of foam analysis without altering the texture, use of particular ingredients etc. for a German food producer (2019)

♦ Development of a probiotic beverage with fibre for health claims and development and scale-up of production on a range of hot sauces (2019)

♦ Nutrition and product development review on functional water products. Focus on vitamin, mineral and functional ingredients related to performance for a US FMCG beverage producer (2019)

♦ Methodologies to resolve a nucleic acid purification issue for a USA producer (2019)

♦ Preparation of dry food mixes for snack products (2015-2018)

♦ Tracking devices for herding animals (2018)

♦ Review on use of direct steam processing including purchasing, operation costs, maintenance and safety issues with equipment for processing certified organic foods.

♦ Development and consultancy on a series of hemp (CBD) based nutritional products (2015-2018)

♦ Consultancy on Stevia for an ingredient supplier in Germany (2017)

♦ Use of preservatives to maintain natural pigments in fresh fruits and vegetables. Technologies to reduce enzymatic browning. Application was to allow for dried fruits to be used in cereals without fading of the product (2017).

♦ Use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy for assessing ‘mushy’ meat in cured hams (2017)

♦ Preparation of affidavit material on a US patent for healthy chocolate (2016)

♦ UK tax review for small-scale cider producer – comparison of cider versus made-wine (2016)

♦ Supply chain investigation on food safety for a defence contractor Riskaware Ltd as part of a KTP analysis (2013-2014)

♦ Sourcing novel health food ingredients for a start-up business (B2B) in the UK (2015)

♦ Development of unit operations for a large FMCG business in citrus processing in Florida (2013)

♦ Sourcing new processing enzymes for a west country cider manufacturer and demonstrating applications at site (2012)

♦ Consultancy and project development on downstream processing with non-dairy ingredients (almond, flax, hemp) (2012)

♦ Technology investigation and consultancy on mid-IR spectroscopy (2011)

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: MARKET LAUNCHES.

# Cider  # Iced Coffee (cold brew, RTD, nitrogen-infused) # Nutritional Beverages: ready to drink and concentrates, energy and protein drinks  # Vitamin waters # Bars: Confectionary and protein Bars  # Snacks: popcorn, extruded products # Sports supplements – powders, single ingredient capsules  # Sauces and salsas.

 

Contact us if you would like to explore and develop your ideas. Tel: 0044 1594 810704 M: 0044 7714101039