Coming soon to a premises near you

UKEIA team member Dharshini is an up and coming auditor!

After completing a B Tech and a Bachelors in Food Technology in India, UKEIA team member Dharshini Infanciya Antonysamy worked for renowned Indian crisp manufacturer, ITC (Bingo) as a manufacturing executive, ensuring that their products ticked all the healthy and safety boxes, from raw material to safe storage. 

At the same time, she studied Business Administration and then, earlier this year, made the leap to studying an MSc here in the UK, aiming to build her skills in the field of food consumer marketing and product development. A project developing the perfect tikka masala - conducting a gap analysis, checking ingredients, performing taste tests and then creating her own product to satisfy FSA standards - kept Dharshini busy in many practical food sessions. She saw for herself how tricky it is to stick to exact grammages so that nutritional values can be calculated, food remains tasty and yet cost demands are met. 

The next step, however, was to learn how she could put others under a similar spotlight and so she took up the challenge of becoming a Brand Reputation Compliance Global Standards auditor, a qualification which is recognised all over the world. From where and how a product is stored, to checking the final foodstuff, Dharshini is now able to go into premises worldwide and give her seal of approval - or otherwise!

She said: “Having experienced the stress of getting ready for audits myself it’s quite fun to be the one doing the inspecting, though I would hope my previous experience means I can give good advice to the owners of the businesses I inspect. This qualification means my work is internationally acceptable and is aimed at human as well as pet and animal feed.

“However, what’s not clear at the moment is whether the qualification covers the inspection of sites breeding insects for protein, for either animals or humans. Creating a really thorough and respected qualification for inspecting bugs is something I’d love to lead research on - imagine being the one that gets to set multi-national regulations for food safety and animal welfare! What an achievement.   

“I’ve seen what a difference temperature can make with salads or frozen foods, getting it wrong can make these foods really high risk - but what is the risk with frozen bugs? I’ve also seen post and pre-mortem inspections of animals where the meat quality varied greatly depending on how much stress the animal went through. How will we measure these things for insects? It’s a fascinating prospect.”

Dharshini continues to work with UKEIA alongside studying for her MSc, with ambitions to link members up with Campden BRI, an organisation that provides practical and scientific, technical, regulatory and information support to help businesses in the food and drink industries succeed. To find out more email us at info@ukeia.co.uk