About
Karen Perry
My food industry journey began as a laboratory technician for an ice-cream company in Cardiff, Wales.
This first introduction into food manufacture sparked my interest in developing my first of many, food safety management systems for small to medium sized food businesses within the UK and Ireland. This produced a series of contract projects and employment opportunities across different food categories (fresh produce, processed meats, dairy desserts, food processing and manufacture).
Credentials
- Registered MPI Food Safety Consultant.
- HND Science (Technology of Food)
- BSc (Hons) Food Marketing & Business Studies
- Adult Education & Training Level 4
- NZQA Assessor Level 4
- Train the Trainer qualification
- Recognised Evaluator and Verifier under the Food Act 2014
- VITAL Trainer Provider
After several years working as a technical intermediary between the supplier and the customer, I relocated to New Zealand with my family and embarked on another journey of raising children. During my children’s early years, I volunteered my services to Plunket as an educator to schools within the Wellington region delivering NZQA courses on Basic Needs of Young Children. I found this work hugely rewarding and embraced the challenge of delivering course content in a fun and interactive way while managing my toddlers in a classroom environment!
Following Plunket, I turned my focus towards becoming a Food Act 2014 regulatory compliance auditor for a certification body within New Zealand. This position opened a new career path in verification, evaluation, and facilitated food industry training.
I have and continue to enjoy the legislative side of my role. I am fully familiar with the Food Act 2014, Food Regulations 2015, Food Standards Australia, New Zealand (FSANZ), Dietary Supplement Regulations 1985, and the Fair-Trading Act 1986.
In addition to New Zealand Food Law, I am also proficient in the key elements of Allergen Management and risk assessment. I am a recognised Allergen Bureau training provider for the delivery of Voluntary Incidental Trace Allergen Labelling (VITAL) courses. The Allergen Bureau’s VITAL Program is a standardised allergen risk assessment process for the food industry to determine cross contact allergens incidents that require the food operator to declare the presence of an allergen. Carrying out a VITAL risk assessment assists food companies to thoroughly review the allergen status of all their ingredients and the processing conditions that contribute towards the allergen status of the finished product.
Food Compliance NZ is a division of Safe Food Services Limited (established 2016) which provides focused eLearning training to verifiers within New Zealand.
While Safe Food Services speciality is the training of regulatory food verifiers and evaluators, we partner with another leading training provider Food Surety whose focus is on training food industry professionals on topics like Introductory HACCP, Advanced HACCP, refresher HACCP, VACCP, TACCP, Food Safety, Advanced Auditing, Food Defence, Train the Trainer and of course my eLearning and facilitated public courses in Allergen Management and Food labelling.