Success story: Gower Cottage Brownies
Background
Based in the heart of South Wales’s Gower Peninsula, Gower Cottage Brownies produce award winning artisan chocolate brownies, brownie butters and truffles.
Established in 2007 by wife-and-husband team Kate and Rob Jenkins, the company sell their products exclusively through their website and the QVC shopping channel. They send out 100s of gift boxes daily, direct to customers’ homes.
BBC Good Food has declared Gower Cottage Brownies to be “the best brownies we have ever tasted”, whilst they have also been featured in publications like the Independent, Guardian and Telegraph.
ZERO2FIVE has previously delivered technical support to Gower Cottage Brownies and so Kate and Rob got in touch when they were looking to update their HACCP food safety management plan for their chocolate brownies. In addition, Kate and Rob wanted to share the responsibility for HACCP with their production supervisor and assistant manager; two members of their team who would be using it on a daily basis.
Support from ZERO2FIVE
ZERO2FIVE initially scoped the requirements for Gower Cottage Brownies’ refreshed HACCP plan alongside co-owner Rob, who has a background in quality management.
Once the requirements of the bespoke HACCP plan were outlined, a ZERO2FIVE technical expert delivered a series of workshops and one-to-two mentoring on the principles of HACCP to Gower Cottage Brownies’ production supervisor and assistant manager.
Topics covered included prerequisite food hygiene requirements, production process flow and hazard analysis. On a weekly basis, the two staff members were given homework, which would then be reviewed the following week with the ZEROFIVE technologist.
Benefits of the support
As a result of the support from ZERO2FIVE, Gower Cottage Brownies now have a refreshed HACCP food safety management plan for their award-winning brownies.
Equally importantly, additional members of the Gower Cottage Brownie team now have a good understanding of HACCP. Embedding a strong food safety culture across the company will enable Kate and Rob to take a step back from some of the day-to-day responsibilities of implementing their HACCP plan.
ZERO2FIVE will continue to support Gower Cottage Brownies to update their HACCP plans for their additional product ranges. With the knowledge transferred to their production supervisor and assistant manager, a greater proportion of this work will be able to be carried out independently.
Kate Jenkins, co-owner Gower Cottage Brownies, said: “The invaluable support from ZERO2FIVE means that our updated HACCP plan has been developed by staff members who will use it on a daily basis. Our team represent the future of our business and so developing their food safety management expertise is vitally important.”
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.
