We caught up with Laura Robinson, Technical controller at Finnebrogue, one of the UK’s leading artisan food producers. The Northern Irish Food producer has been using Foods Connected, an end to end supply chain management software based in Sydney and Northern Ireland, for the past 12 months to manage their supplier and raw material approval process and most importantly their food safety and quality, something fundamental to their USP.
Finnebrogue has been a staple in UK supermarkets for decades, priding itself on quality, sustainability and innovation creating superior products whilst utilising advanced high-speed production methods. The company now operates four state-of-the-art production facilities in the UK and Europe, producing a vast range of artisan meat and innovative meat-free products for major UK and international supermarket chains, local retailers, and their own brands.
The team at Finnebrogue has adopted the Foods Connected system to manage all of its brands, including ‘Finnebrogue Artisan’, ‘Finnebrogue Naked’ and ‘The Good Little Company’. Over the years it has diversified its offering, now with lines including sausages, burgers and stuffings, nitrite-free bacon and ham as well as vegetarian and vegan meat alternatives. The most recent additions to the product line include coated faux-meat products and faux-meat pieces.
Before implementing the Foods Connected system across its four production sites, Finnebrogue was following a more manual and traditional process, relying on emails and lengthy spreadsheets. “As our range of products grew, so did the ever-increasing customer and GFSI requirements and the practicalities of maintaining an audit-ready Food Safety Management System was becoming unreliable.”
With quality being a number one priority for Finnebrogue, it was “labour intensive” and frustrating trying to keep each supplier’s documentation up to date on a regular basis especially when “poring through certificates, specifications and mammoth spreadsheets.”
This was complicated further with the “rollout of new procedures & policies, factory documents and audit templates.” More strain was placed on emails, and this resulted in congested system folders to try and locate most recent versions – a major strain on time and resources!
Discovering simplified control with Foods Connected
With so many options available, the team at Finnebrogue was searching for a solution that not only met the company’s needs but was also scalable and easy to manage.
“We looked at a number of solutions in the market but felt that Foods Connected was the most user friendly and easy to use system. It didn’t feel like we would need an IT degree in order to manage or navigate the system which was a really big selling point.”
Originally, we looked at the raw material management tools but were aware of other tools available, including auditing and a document manager so we knew it was a fit for the future.
The two major benefits the team at Finnebrogue noticed straight away when moving to a digital system were:
- Notable time saved in the supplier and raw material approval process.
- Ease of tracking and tracing.
Finnebrogue was able to take back control and its time, utilising flexible form templates coupled with multi-request and automatic reminder functionality which resulted in faster, more detailed documentation from its suppliers, streamlining the once-tedious approval process. The company also noted that with the platforms ‘Horizon Scanning’ and ‘Customer Complaints’ tools it has never been so simple to stay on top of “food safety alerts, company incidents and complaints” which allows the company to manage its suppliers and customers, provide the best service possible and mitigate any risks, allowing the company to uphold its reputation for quality.
Interested in simplifying your processes and saving time?
Companies across the globe are using Foods Connected to better manage their processes and streamline their supply chains.
Why not book in for a free demo with our Sydney based food industry professional Tom Redden who will be able to walk you through the solution and discuss how Foods Connected could meet your needs and pain points.
If you’d like to read more about Foods Connected and our software solutions, we’ve made it simple. You can click here to view our Digital Transformation Brochure.
