Technical Director: leading excellence in food and health and safety consultancy services
By providing the highest customer service and acting with honesty and integrity, Safer Food Scores has grown a large, loyal and prestigious client base. As one of our two Technical Directors, you will be at the forefront of preserving these high standards as we continue to expand. Join us in our mission to become recognised as the leading experts to the UK’s food industry!
Role and responsibilities
As Technical Director, you will play a pivotal role in providing food hygiene, allergen management and health and safety expertise to small, large and multi-site food manufacturing, retail and hospitality operators. Your role is crucial to ensuring that our team of consultants and our clients are kept up-to-date with forthcoming legislation, industry guidance and the latest innovations to make compliance easier.
Your key responsibilities will be building strong client relationships, onboarding clients and regular account reviews. You will identify opportunities to improve and make changes to our clients’ operations and to the products and services that we provide. You will liaise with our primary authority and local authority partners to ensure consistent enforcement of our clients’ operations. You will recruit, upskill and lead our consultant team, and together you will exceed and regularly check client satisfaction levels.
Qualifications and requirements
You will have an environmental health degree or similar and have been employed in regulatory enforcement and/or consultancy services. You will be a car driver and owner and located within one hour of our head office in Berkhamsted, Herts.
We are looking for someone who is friendly with a positive outlook, self-motivated and reliable. You will be a highly organised multi-tasker with the ability to prioritise and be able to work speedily, accurately and with initiative. You will possess good commercial understanding and be a confident and effective communicator, used to dealing with challenges and senior managers.
Salary and benefits
This is a permanent, full-time, employed role. We are offering a competitive salary of £55K with pension and performance-related bonuses. You will be based at our head office in the beautiful market town of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, with some home working, as well as travel to client sites mainly in London and the South-East. We are committed to your professional development and training opportunities will be provided.
At Safer Food Scores, we are dedicated to fostering a culture of innovation and integrity. We value our employees’ contributions and encourage a friendly, collaborative environment where everyone’s perspectives are welcomed. Join us in making a positive impact on the food industry while enjoying a fulfilling and rewarding career.
How to apply
Please submit your CV to hello@saferfoodscores.co.uk The application deadline is 2nd December 2023 but if we find the ideal applicant sooner, we may bring the deadline forward.
Safer Food Scores is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds.
Thank you for your interest in the Technical Director role. We look forward to reviewing your application and potentially welcoming you to our dedicated team. Your expertise with play a pivotal role in shaping the future of Safer Food Scores.
Are you an independent food hygiene and safety trainer or consultant?
If you would like to work on a sub-contracting basis for a dynamic and exciting food hygiene and health and safety training company and consultancy, we would love to hear from you. Our clients demand excellence (and rightly so) and it is essential therefore that you are able to communicate clearly and act professionally at all times. You should be friendly, helpful and understand the absolute requirement for confidentiality.
It goes without saying that you will be fully qualified in your area of expertise and that you will have the necessary experience to be able to provide practical and cost effective compliance solutions for our clients. Trainers should be energetic and understand the need to make our training courses interesting and fun. We currently have vacancies in some parts of the country on a sub-contracting basis for the following positions:
- Food hygiene consultants and/or trainers
- Health and safety consultants and/or trainers
- Fire safety consultants and/or trainers
- Level 3 Highfield Delivering Training or Education and Training trainers
If you would like to join our team please complete our SFS sub-contractor application form and return it by e-mail with your CV to hello@saferfoodscores.co.uk
Our Central Team
Melissa Thompson Managing Director
Melissa is the Founder of Safer Food Scores and has degrees in both Hospitality and in Environmental Health. She worked in hotel, pub, and restaurant management before qualifying as an EHO. Later she managed a team responsible for enforcing food hygiene and health and safety in the Borough’s 1000+ food businesses. Following 13 years in local government, Melissa moved into the private sector consultancy, before setting up Safer Food Scores Ltd in 2010.
Melissa is a Chartered EHP (Environmental Health Practitioner) and is on the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register. This means that her competence has been assessed by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the Health and Safety Executive and that her knowledge is up to date. She is the Chair of the Primary Authority Business User Group which brings together representatives from the Department of Trade and Industry, Chief Executives and Health and Safety Directors to help improve consistency of enforcement throughout the UK.
Melissa is a mother of two and has two golden retrievers. She is currently undecided which are the more troublesome.
Lucy Fleming Sales & Operations Director
Lucy is our Sales and Operations Director based in the Berkhamsted office since 2018. Lucy has many years’ experience working in the food industry formally having worked in Retail Operations with M&S for 17 years followed by an operational role within an independent food safety consultancy. Prior to joining SFS she was the Operations Director with a partner company of ours providing an online food safety solution. She brings a wealth of expertise in driving operational efficiencies and leading business growth which, coupled with her passion for client service, is a perfect fit for our business.
Lucy is a mum of 2 boys, both currently at university. Outside of work she loves nothing better than being in the great outdoors, be that maintaining her much-loved garden or walking in the beautiful countryside around.
In the spirit of ”you’re never too old”, she is also planning her third skydive later this year – in San Francisco!
Alison Gower Technical Director
Alison has a degree in Environmental Health and is an EHO and voting member of the CIEH.
Alison started her career in Environmental Health working in commercial teams (Food safety and Health and safety) in local authorities and London Boroughs. She has a wealth of enforcement experience in the commercial sector including all types of food businesses, retail and hospitality. Alison’s specialist area is Health and Safety and will never accept that ‘safety is dull’ – she enjoys the variety of legislation and helping businesses comply with what can seem a daunting area of compliance.
Alison has used this experience for the past 10 years in consultancy having also worked Universities.
Alison is mother of three teenage boys and loves the outdoors, as a scout leader she is heading to South Korea in summer to take 36 scouts on the jamboree adventure of a lifetime!
Nicky Slavid Technical Director
Nicky has worked in the Hospitality industry for 30+ years, starting as a waitress, barmaid, chef and finally Kitchen manager where she discovered a love of all things food safety and health and safety.
Following completing her Environment health degree Nicky has worked for a range of businesses, from large International quick-service brands to safety consultancies providing bespoke guidance for weird and wonderful activities. From nitrogen-infused ice cream to risk assessing boxing matches, from swordfish ceviche to fire jugglers, Nicky’s experience means she can offer a pragmatic approach.
Nicky is a Chartered EHP (Environmental Health Practitioner), a member of IOSH, has 2 teenagers and enjoys cooking and eating (mainly eating) in her spare time.
Audrey Deane Food Safety Consultant
Audrey has a BSc (Hons) degree in Food Science and nutrition and more than 30 years’ experience in the food industry. Audrey has been a member of the SFS team for 12 years, firstly as an associate and then as part of the head office team.
She previously worked for two major UK retailers and has technical and food safety auditing experience in all sizes of businesses across the globe across many food sectors. Audrey also has experience of working with BRC and SALSA assurance schemes and is an experienced and engaging food safety trainer.
Audrey is a keen cook and author of cookbooks with a best-selling slow cooker cookbook among her successes. She also loves dogs and has in 2021 rescued an English Pointer from Spain. In her spare time Audrey enjoys applying her singing skills with a local band and has recently taken up playing the base guitar.
Craig Rennie Environmental Health Consultant
Craig has been a Head Chef for over fifteen years. Spending a total of twenty-eight years working up and down the country, from The Old Course Hotel St Andrews to Tresco on the Isles of Scilly. Primarily working in fine dining, he also has a vast knowledge of high-end large-scale catering.
Craig studied whilst working and completed a Master’s Degree of Science in Environmental Health in September 2021 and made the move into the private sector with Safer Food Scores. He still enjoys the kitchen environment and working with other Chefs, all be it from a different side of a food audit. Craig has got previous experience with digital HACCP recording and believes it to be a worthwhile addition to any catering establishment.
Craig is married with a busy household of two children (nineteen & fifteen), two Labradors and three parrots.
Jessica Grey Office Administrator
With her experience managing private day nurseries, Jess joined our team in 2022 to head in a new direction in her professional life. Her experience has shown her just how important food hygiene and health & safety are in protecting everyone in our communities, especially those most vulnerable.
Jess and the other members of our Operations team help keep everything running smoothly. She is on hand to help our clients with anything they might need from invoicing queries to guidance on using SFS Hub.
In her personal life, Jess is a keen horticulturist and enjoys pursuing many different creative passions including linguistics, sewing and painting.
