Case studies
Helping an investor in decision making
Leatherhead’s crisis management team supported a non-food and beverage business investor in crisis with simplifying the complex food legislation and food chemistry to make a risk-based decision on a mis-labelled product.
Leatherhead crisis management team supported the client with no food and beverage product portfolio to simplify the complex legislation and lab results to enable the client to understand if their soft drink products are being mis-sold to consumers. The team verified the product and created a fast, actionable plan to avoid financial losses.
Approach
- Leatherhead quickly put a crisis management team together (legislation expert, food chemist, and microbiologist)
- The team worked in parallel to ensure a speedy response by checking the viability of the composition of the products and labels
- The lab results were analysed in accordance with European Fruit Juice Association standards
- The label was evaluated to make the essential changes to keep the product on the market
Benefit
- Quick/fast support for non-F&B business to simplify and understand the issues
- All experts needed to manage the crisis in one place
- Help in making a risk-based decision by providing an actionable plan to avoid financial losses
Robust and rational retail additive policy
A leading food retailer asked to review and generate their additive policy with the aim to create policy on ‘natural’ to promote consumer-friendly products without unnecessary impact on product quality & safety.
Research into UK and EU approved additives lists of artificial and natural ingredients supported by existing regulatory definitions / frameworks and industry guidelines allowed Leatherhead to produce a searchable guidance document classifying additives into three categories.
Approach
- A team of regulatory experts and food scientists were working together to provide an assessment of ‘natural’ landscape in the additive world
- A coded system was created to show three categories which were easy to communicate to suppliers and product developers
- Nearly 400 additives were evaluated against agreed UK and EU guidance definitions of ‘natural’
- The justification behind the database was shared in an on-site workshop to ensure the knowledge was transferred to staff
Benefit
- The client was able to protect their retailer brand and address growing consumer concern/demand for “natural” ingredients and products
- The findings helped the retailer to find the balance between mandatory regulatory requirement and safe, quality and consumer-friendly branded products
- A simple searchable database allowed the client a more active approach to reducing artificial flavours and colours in their food without unnecessarily restricting options for their suppliers
- The client gained an objective science and regulatory based opinion on grey area of the food legislation from an external expert
Complex EU food legislation into a simple user-friendly map
Leatherhead’s regulatory team supported a leading global soft drink corporation in mapping the multifaceted EU legislation to provide simplicity and consistency across all EU sites.
Following the publication of another new regulation coupled with several amendments, our client asked us to map the food regulations into an easy to use guide for multiple EU manufacturing sites for all stakeholders.
Approach
- A designated technical expert working along with several senior reviewers to ensure accuracy
- The team then compiled the complex web of EU food regulations in a simplified report demonstrating the interactions between different pieces of regulations along with links to original documents and amendments
- A structured overarching report was created, combining an overview of key points together with specific detailed requirements of each regulation
Benefits
- A document was produced to ensure consistencies in knowledge and training materials between multiple EU sites which is a quick, simple and up to date reference guide of the complex EU food legislation web
- The document is user-friendly for all stakeholders from marketing, R&D team and regulatory team
- Most importantly, the map is continuously updated to ensure accuracy
- The client was able to adapt the map to use for internal auditing
Store opening in new market for a leading chocolatier
Leatherhead experts helped in a US store opening with 300+ products launch. The client, an international chocolate retailer and manufacturer, had insufficient in-house capacity to prepare their product line’s labels for launch into the US market, under very tight deadlines.
Approach
- The workflow was agreed for the delivery of each label
- Due to the large volume of data required for 350 products, a file management policy was also established to avoid errors, duplication and maintain quality
- Weekly project reports were sent to the client, in a format they required for internal reporting. This included weekly meetings with the client to discuss successes and challenges
Benefits
- The client was able to open their first US store on time followed by another shortly thereafter
- The client understood exactly what was needed to ensure in order to create their labels on time. The regular updates from Leatherhead allowed the client to accurately plan activities downstream of label creation. Weekly meetings allowed the client and us to discuss technical issues and label delivery.
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