Food + Beverage Consulting & Training to help your business succeed.

Sensory Testing & Training to give your company a competitive advantage.

Meeting food safety compliance & achieving certification.

Sirocco's technical food consulting & training services bring you sharp senses and systematic assurance.

Sirocco Food and Wine Consulting specializes in delivering technical consulting services including Food Safety Management System implementation (HACCP, SQF, FSEP, Preventive Controls for Human Food) as well as Sensory Testing of food, wine and other beverages. We focus on science and best practices to provide value to our clients.

Public awareness of food safety is on the rise and new food safety regulations are being enforced to protect consumers. Is your company compliant? Do you know what it takes?

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You need a Food Safety Consulting & Training Expert!

Are you trying to navigate the world of Food Safety Compliance and Certification? As you’ve probably discovered, achieving compliance and certification takes a lot more than filling out forms. It can mean learning a whole new language of food handling and regulations, and it could involve overhauling your system of production.

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Sensory Testing

Food and beverage processors increasingly use sensory analysis to remain competitive and meet or exceed their customer needs. Sensory testing of food, wine and other beverages relies on science-based methodologies to assist with new product development, shelf-life analysis, development of product specifications, quality and process control and competitor benchmarking.

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Meet Sirocco’s Expert, Karine Lawrence

Karine Lawrence, Owner and Principal Consultant, has worked for the wine and food industry for over 20 years and brings an extensive working knowledge in Food Safety, Sensory Evaluation of food and wine, and Quality Management. Since the inception of Sirocco Food + Wine Consulting in 2014, she has provided research and consulting services to food and wine industry stakeholders in Canada and the United States. Karine holds a Master of Food Science degree as well as a diplôme d’ingénieur (specialized in agri-food industries). Karine’s teaching credentials include being a Lead FSPCA instructor (human Food), Certified SQF Trainer Consultant and Wine educator at Okanagan College (Penticton Campus). She is a certified HACCP professional and a member of the Society of Sensory Professionals

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Meet a Collaborator of Sirocco, Dereje Bezabih

Dereje Bezabih (Ph.D.) has worked as a Quality Assurance team member in Beverage and Natural Health Product Manufacturing companies, before holding his current position of Agricultural Scientist. In the past three years, Dereje has been collaborating with Sirocco to develop several HACCP Projects for small and medium food companies. Dereje holds a Ph.D. degree in Horticulture, with a research in the post-harvest food quality of horticultural crops. Moreover, he completed a one year course from the M.Sc. Program called ‘Safety in the Food Chain’ in an Austrian University before he earned his Master of Food Science degree from the University of British Columbia.

Meet Darcen Esau

Darcen is a market researcher specializing in both consumer behavior and sensory evaluation. With over a decade of experience designing and implementing research studies, he is currently working at the University of British Columbia Okanagan to better understand the sensory experience of wine and how this impacts consumer decision making.
Previously, as the Associate Vice President at Ipsos, he designed and implemented consumer behavior and product understanding studies for clients throughout North America. As an experienced moderator and facilitator, this included dozens of qualitative projects, including focus groups, IDI’s, shop-alongs, and ethnographies. Additionally, he has designed and conducted dozens of quantitative studies, many of which utilize advanced analytics like Implicit Association, TURF, Discrete Choice Modelling and MaxDiff.
As a Panel Leader for Sensory Spectrum Inc., he led descriptive analysis panels to understand the sensory experience of consumer products, a skillset he continues to implement with wine panel research across Canada.

Do you have food + beverage industry questions that need answers?

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Sirocco is the expert that provides your company with:

  • Consistent Quality Products.
  • Consumer Confidence.
  • New Market Opportunities.
  • Long-term Money Saving.
  • Ensured compliance with Law and Regulation.
  • Reduce Risk of Product Recalls.
  • Organization to Food Management Processes.
  • Knowledgeable and Accountable Staff.

Sirocco will help your business succeed with consulting, training and implementation of:

From the Blog

Read more on SFCR Compliance – Food Safety Funding Now Available In BC
TagsFood Safety, News
Posted on19 February, 2019 by Sirocco Consulting

SFCR Compliance – Food Safety Funding Now Available In BC

The Safe Food for Canadians Act and Regulations came into force on January 15, 2019.1  The new food safety regulations target food for human consumption including ingredients. Requirements are established for food that is imported, exported, or traded between Canadian provinces and territories. Other requirements pertaining to food traceability, labelling and advertising also apply to…

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Read more on Is Your Food Manufacturing or Storage Facility Compliant with FSMA? You Should Consider SQF Certification
TagsCertifications, News
Posted on10 January, 2019 by Sirocco Consulting

Is Your Food Manufacturing or Storage Facility Compliant with FSMA? You Should Consider SQF Certification

The global food certification market was estimated at USD 8.45 billion in 2017. It is projected to reach USD 11.45 billion by 2023. Food certification is a process that allows a business to demonstrate compliance to food safety and quality standards. Certification is achieved through independent and reliable third-party audits of manufacturing or storage sites.…

Read More

Read the latest news from the food + beverage industry

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What Clients Are Saying

We contacted Sirocco Consulting after scoring lower than desired on a SQF 8.0 audit. Karine visited our plant and did a gap assessment. We found her efficient and helpful and used her guidance to get our CARs addressed. Subsequently, we hired Karine to return and train our key personnel on the FSPCA course. Again, we appreciate her knowledge and ability to teach in efficiently. I would recommend Sirocco to anyone needing help building their food safety program. Read More
We just had a gap assessment conducted in preparation for our SQF audit. We developed our written program with the help of Sirocco Food and Wine Consulting. These templates are terrific and easy to implement. The SQF consultant who performed the document review was very impressed with the quality of the procedures and record templates. Knowing that our written documents meet the standard, we feel that we are in a good position to pass our SQF audit and obtain our certification.
As a worldwide importer, in-house re-packager, and direct supplier of over 200 diverse food and dietary supplement ingredients, we faced significant compliance challenges surrounding FSMA, FSVP, and dietary supplement GMP, on top of customer requirements for GFSI compliance.  We interviewed multiple food safety consultants prior to choosing Karine Lawrence at Sirocco, and we couldn’t be happier with our choice— Karine’s FSPCA PCQI Lead Instructor, certified SQF trainer/consultant, auditing and R&D background among other experience was the perfect match for our needs.  She took a practical, entity-based approach in helping us design and implement a comprehensive SQF Edition 8 QMS tailored to effectively and efficiently manage our risks and compliance requirements, while keeping the customer service and operational aspects of our business a priority.  We were impressed with both the form and function of her modern SOP and document sets, as well as all the detail HACCP, risk assessment and other diligence she performed, including working within our cloud-based document management/FSVP software system.  Now we’re receiving “Excellent” audit scores and are delivering better value to our customers than ever.  Sirocco was a great choice!
We worked with Sirocco Food & Wine Consulting to get our FSVP. Karine was great to work with. She was very helpful and always got back to us promptly with any questions we had. I would recommend Sirroco to anyone working on getting their FSVP.
What I appreciated about the course taught by Karine and Sirocco, was that it was organized and well presented. Each day had hands on situations presented that could be worked out by the teams as well as volumes of information at hand. This allowed good participation and dialogue about situations and these discussions could lead to real time questions that we could ask as well and work through as needed. It was a good few days of intense learning and exchange.
I got a better understanding of the Food Safety Plan required for FSMA from this [FDA’s Preventive Controls Human Food] training. Karine has skillfully conducted the training as she provided fact-based examples and links to additional resources to help first-timers build an FSP.  Karine was a wonderful trainer with her knowledge of the subject matter and extensive experience in food safety.
I attended the FSPCA Preventive Controls (Human Food)/PCQI course offered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Course materials were good, the mentoring approach was good, and working with other people in group setting made the course content much clearer. Karine Lawrence, the PCQI instructor did a good job of communicating and... Read More
I recently attended the training session for PCQI (Preventive Controls Qualified Individual) required by the FDA for food exporters and U.S. food processing facilities. Karine Lawrence presented a clear view of the requirements and provided good practical example on how to implement them. She worked her way though the extensive manual in a... Read More
Karine Lawrence of Sirocco Consulting was the best choice we could have made when preparing for our first GFSI audit at Libre Naturals.  Karine’s vast knowledge of food manufacturing best practices and auditing code combined with her calm and patient approach brought much needed structure to what can be a very stressful experience... Read More
The team at Little Creek Dressing had the pleasure of working with Karine Lawrence of Sirocco Consulting for 16 months. She guided us through the complete process of our HACCP food safety plan, from creation and implementation to audit verification. She was instrumental in preparing our facility and team to be audit ready... Read More
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