Success story: Joe’s Ice Cream
Background
Established in Swansea in 1922, the family run Joe’s Ice Cream has been making their award-winning products for over a hundred years.
Joe’s ice cream is available to buy in supermarkets across Wales as well as directly from their five parlours, which can be found in Swansea, Cardiff and Llanelli.
Whilst Joe’s produces ice cream in over 20 different flavours, they’re most well known for their Fresh Vanilla ice cream, which is sold exclusively at their parlours.
ZERO2FIVE have worked with Joe’s for a number of years, providing the company with ongoing support to help them maintain their SALSA certification.
SALSA is one of the UK’s most recognised food and drink safety certification schemes. It plays a vital role for manufacturers by helping them secure major retail listings through proof of compliance with industry-approved safety standards.
Support from ZERO2FIVE
A ZERO2FIVE technologist mentored Joe’s operations manager and a new team member on all four sections of the SALSA standard, covering prerequisite controls (the fundamental site-wide controls that must be in place before food production begins), HACCP food safety management, premises and documentation. This was particularly relevant for the new team member who was unfamiliar with SALSA. Areas of specific focus included traceability from goods-in all the way to dispatch, including a test product recall exercise, and pest control.
ZERO2FIVE also carried out a gap analysis of Joe’s food safety management systems against the requirements of the SALSA standard to help identify any final areas for improvement in advance of their audit. In addition, the technologist discussed the types of documentation and evidence that would be needed to show the auditor as well as best practice for how to prepare for an audit.
Benefits of the support
As a result of the support, Joe’s successfully passed their SALSA audit in November 2025 with just a few corrective actions and improvements. Successfully maintaining SALSA certification is a key requirement for the company to be able to supply their products to major retailers.
ZERO2FIVE will deliver further support to help the company put in place an action plan for implementing any corrective actions. Ongoing mentoring of Joe’s new team member will also help to grow the company’s in house technical capabilities. With SALSA Issue 7 set to launch in 2026, this will be a particular area of focus to ensure Joe’s food safety management systems meet the requirements of the latest version of the standard.
Lucy Hughes, Director, Joe’s Ice Cream:
“We would recommend partnering with ZERO2FIVE, particularly for their deep knowledge in food safety, quality management and regulatory compliance. Successfully maintaining SALSA certification has expanded our market reach and enhanced our supplier credibility.
“We found the team at ZERO2FIVE to be very responsive and approachable and we built a strong professional relationship with them over the course of the project. Their unbiased approach has built our trust and confidence in their services, and we would not hesitate to consult with ZERO2FIVE again for other projects.”
Get in touch with us
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business or have any questions about the support we can offer, then please get in touch.
