Accredited courses
Our courses are:
- Officially recognised by the food industry.
- Recognised by BRCGS auditors.
- Approved by industry experts.
- CPD compliant.
The endorsement process
We ask an expert in their field of study or those who have a wealth of experience in specific subject areas related to food safety, to assess our courses and provide us with their honest feedback. By doing this, you know that the content of our courses meets their exacting standards in their area of expertise.
We pay the experts for their time to carry out this assessment. However, the payment does produce a conflict of interest. Therefore, to remove this, we’ve made the Techni-K Endorsement Programme fully transparent, by sharing the process and the feedback we receive with you.
We’re not naive in thinking that the experts won’t be able to provide us with aspects of our course content and delivery that we can improve, but that’s okay – as we’ll use their feedback to make our courses even better.
Here’s the questions that the experts are asked:
- Based on what you know of us as a business, how would you describe Techni-K?
- How well do you think that the course explains this subject?
- Is the level of learning relevant to the specified role?
- What are your thoughts on the assessment questions?
- What do you think of the quality of the training materials (interactive video and lesson guide)?
- How does this course compare to other similar courses that you’re aware of?
- Are there any aspects of the course that you would see as best practice?
- How does this course add value to the industry?
- What would you improve?
- Is there anything that’s missing?
- Are there any aspects of the course that are not pitched at the right level?
- Are there any aspects of the course that are confusing or misleading?
Over the coming months and years, we’ll be working towards endorsing all of our courses, and we look forward to sharing the results with you!
Meet our experts
Professor Chris Elliott – Product defence
53North – Maintenance
Nic Sharman – Continuous improvement, food safety controls & GMP
Bridgette Clarke – Microbiology
Professor Chris Elliott, PhD, FRSC, FRSB, MRIA, OBE
Chris Elliott has studied and researched food safety and fraud for over 30 years. He has published more than 500 peer review articles relating to the detection and control of agriculture, food, and environmental related contaminants. Protecting the integrity of the food supply chain from fraud is a key research topic and Chris led the independent review of Britain’s food system following the 2013 horsemeat scandal. He is a co-founder of the UK Food Industry Intelligence Network and has served as a non-executive director since its inception in 2015. He acts as a scientific advisor for many food companies, non-governmental and governmental agencies in the areas of food safety, food fraud and food systems resilience.
Specialist subject area: Product defence
Chris has assessed our product defence courses and also the product defence aspects of the food safety and GMP training courses.
53North – Mr Tom Clayton MSc and Mr Keith Smith MSc
53North is an asset care company, which provide maintenance services and consultancy to the food industry.
Tom has over 20 years’ experience of working in the food and beverage manufacturing sector, with key skills such as; RCM, CBM, Value Stream Mapping, and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). He has a strong business development background and his professionalism is underpinned with a Master of Science (MSc) in Reliability Engineering & Asset Management from The University of Manchester. Tom is responsible for Reliability Services at 53North, which includes the development of Asset Care Packages to improve equipment reliability, and reduce risk to the product and the business.
Keith has spent over 20 years in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods environment, developing and promoting Asset Care Standards. Keith has carried out the maintenance manager, maintenance PPM planner and maintenance co-ordinators roles. His key skills are RCA, FMEA, RCM, Spares Management, and an adept understanding of Maintenance Change Management, both technical and cultural. Keith’s has a Master of Science (MSc) in Reliability Engineering and Asset Management at the University of Manchester in 2017. Heading up the Asset Care team at 53North, his focus is the development of Customer Asset Management and Asset Care strategies.
Specialist subject area: Maintenance
Tom and Keith have assessed our maintenance courses.
Nic Sharman, MSc, FIFST, RFoodSM, RPFAM
Nic Sharman is a pragmatic professional with a MSc in Food Safety Management and nearly 30 years’ experience in the food industry, specialising in food safety and integrity technical compliance. She is an experienced and enthusiastic Factory Standards Manager with a demonstrated history of working in food manufacturing, catering and retail sectors. She has global experience as a food safety and integrity auditor with knowledge across all food and beverage categories.
Throughout her career she has conducted a variety of audits; GMP, system audits, factory approval and compliance audits. During her time at M&S she was responsible for developing the food safety and integrity manufacturing standards for all M&S suppliers. She also developed and implemented the corresponding food safety and integrity audits that were carried out by an independent audit company. As part of her role, she audited new suppliers to M&S to assess their safety, legality and quality systems were suitable to supply. Now as an independent Nic audits factory for compliance to retailer requirements, GFSI standards and various targeted topics such as foreign body controls or management of Listeria.
Specialist subject area: Continuous improvement, food safety controls and GMP
Nic has assessed our continuous improvement courses and also the food safety controls and GMP aspects of the food safety and GMP training courses.
Bridgette Clarke, BSc (hons)
After graduating with a degree in Biological Sciences (Microbiology), Bridgette joined the chilled food industry managing microbiology and chemistry laboratories. Her career progressed to working within the central technical department as company microbiologist, carrying out food safety and hygiene audits, writing company standards, delivering training courses and advising manufacturing sites in all aspects of food safety and in particular microbiological food safety.
Over the past 30+ years working for the chilled food industry, products and market demands have changed, and this demands continual review of food safety systems and in particular the correct use of risk zones to consistently ensure product safety. It has therefore been crucial to work with major retailers and trade associations such as the Chilled Food Association to carry out these reviews and ensure the best food safety systems are developed.
As a microbiologist, Bridgette has worked closely with all stakeholders and written numerous industry documents covering food safety, in conjunction with or on behalf of major retailers, trade associations, public health and the FSA. Food safety courses, which have often included risk-based zones, risk assessment, process validation and the use of microbiology to validate, verify and monitor CCPs, have been delivered at conferences for enforcement authorities, public health, research associations and retailers. Bridgette has also been involved in consultations regarding legislation and guidance documents for the UK and EU.
After 38 years working for the chilled food industry, Bridgette is now semi-retired and continues to carry out consultancy in microbiological food safety.
Specialist subject area: Microbiology
Bridgette has assessed the microbiology content in our food safety and GMP training courses and also our compliance course for Defining risk-based zones.
Accredited qualifications?
Accredited qualifications are provided by Accreditation Centres, which have been recognised by Ofqual. Ofqual are a government body who regulate qualifications in the UK.
The only qualifications that are accredited are those that are provided by Accreditation Centres such as Highfield. However, not all training provided by suppliers such as Highfield is accredited. This is because accrediting qualifications is a very restrictive decision, and it’s not actually required for our industry (with the exception of Level 4 HACCP and Food Safety in some instances).
It’s more important to choose a course that meets your requirements and is of good quality, rather than going for a qualification.
