Claire Kirby

Claire Kirby - Hygiene Consultant

Industry Insights From a Leading Hygiene Consultant

Partner of Choice

As part of her twenty-plus years’ experience in the food industry, Claire’s expertise is regularly enlisted to streamline the cleanliness procedures, safety standards, and culture of compliance at some of the country’s largest companies, including Muller Yogurts & Desserts, Kraft Heinz, and Ecolab, among others.

Below are seven clips taken from an exclusive interview Claire carried out with Alex Carlyon, one of Klipspringer’s directors. In these, Claire shares some of her fascinating industry insights, her thoughts on the pressures of audits, and her experiences partnering with Klipspringer.

Claire Kirby, Director at Innovation Hygiene Consultancy

Claire’s background and initial dealings with Klipspringer

“When I walk into a factory, I look for certain things, one of them is the shadow boards from Klipspringer – and then I know I’m going to be okay!”

Listen as Claire details her extensive history of work in the food industry, her take on audits being “battles”, and a couple of entertaining anecdotes which illustrate the importance of seamless services and support by food safety and compliance companies.

The impact of strong vs sub-par food safety support

In the below clip, Claire emphasises the crucial importance of food compliance for keeping manufacturers afloat. She tells Alex about the catastrophic consequences of losing large customers for two of her clients – an unpleasant outcome which Klipspringer helped to prevent.

Claire’s experience partnering with Klipspringer

Compliance with confidence isn’t just a saying for us at Klipspringer – it underpins everything we do. Listen to the clip below to find out how we’ve delivered that confidence for Claire and her clients over the years, why it matters … and what a hygiene hug is!

Claire’s previous experiences with other partners

In this section of the interview, Claire tells Alex about her challenges when dealing with other food safety partners.

Adding value moving forward

Always eager to discover new ways to innovate and provide top-tier service, Alex asks Claire how Klipspringer can continue to provide value in future. In this clip, Claire offers various shrewd suggestions, based on her own time working closely with Senior Leadership Teams (SLTs) at some of the largest manufacturers around the UK.

The inside scoop on audits

“You can stage it as much as you want, but it never works that way!”

Penultimately, Claire reveals the exact process, step-by-step, of a typical audit, specifying the need for both preparation and flexibility. To provide a concrete example, she draws on her recent experience with a particularly thorough Tesco auditor!

Final words

In this final clip, Claire and Alex exchange words on what constitutes impeccable customer service, and why Klipspringer have been her dependable partner of choice for several years.

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Queensland Bakery

Queensland Bakery

Simplifying colour coding and ensuring audit compliance for a rapidly-growing family bakery.

Background

In his role as Operations Director at Queensland Bakery, Bryan Fowler has ultimate responsibility for food safety compliance at their new factory in Hampshire.

With a growing customer base and increasingly high audit demands, Queensland moved to a new bakery in 2022 to provide much larger production capacity.

As well as a complete fit-out of new equipment, Bryan knew he must make compliance simple to achieve and maintain, while also ensuring production remains as lean as possible!

Queensland Bakery is family-owned company in Hampshire, focused on innovating and manufacturing great quality impulse food products for the catering sector.

With over 900 retail, out of home and food service customers, they have recently moved to a new BRCGS-certified site and looked to Klipspringer to support with their compliance and equipment requirements.

Colour-coded shadow boards and utensils for a new BRCGS-certified bakery facility.

Why did Queensland Bakery choose Klipspringer?

Compliance advice and technical know-how

With over 20 years’ experience serving the food industry, the Klipspringer team have the necessary expertise for every stage – from first-time accreditation through to new factory fit-out projects.

For Bryan, with so many audit pressures, customer demands and production deadlines, it was this level of knowledge and dedicated hand-holding that set Klipspringer apart as a supply partner.

Colour-coding support

Previously, Queensland’s colour coding policy involved the use of multiple colours for segregation (e.g. allergen, tasks, areas). Not only was this proving difficult for the team to remember, it was also difficult for management to keep on top of day by day.

Working with Klipspringer, Queensland were able to reduce the number of colours used. Implementing bespoke shadow boards made it easy to ensure all equipment is stored cleanly and correctly. It also helped reinforce the colour coding policy and which utensils should be used with the team.

Shadow boards, with magnetic mounting

An additional bonus for Bryan was Klipspringer’s new magnetic shadow board system. As well as a rapid install time, this meant shadow boards can be easily relocated as their processes and factory floorplan evolves – all without causing any material damage to factory walling.

Happier staff and greater compliance...

“We achieved a Grade A at our new site this week which is a massive achievement with so many changes to personnel, systems and processes in 8 weeks, and really appreciate the Klipspringer team’s support in ensuring we are fully compliant in the areas of utensils and storage, and also our hygiene requirements. Our staff are now happier and finding it much easier to comply. We no longer have items go ‘missing’, as everything has to be returned at the end of each shift. The team also comment regularly how much easier it is to use the right utensil for the right job.”

Bryan Fowler, Operations Director

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Bespoke Shadow Boards & Cleaning Stations

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Colour Coded Cleaning & Production Tools

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A G Barr

A G Barr

A smarter approach to segregation for production and storage areas.

Background

As Continuous Improvement Leader at A G Barr, Alex Wilson had identified a problem with segregation within the recycling area of the facility.  The previous method in use was cumbersome and difficult for the team to manage, as well as being time-consuming to clean and maintain on a regular basis.

Following extensive discussions with several companies, Klipspringer suggested their unique SegriScreen solution – a mobile and modular screening system that are easy to install, easy to clean and make cleaning the floor area a doddle.

Established in Scotland over 140 years ago, A G Barr is a soft drinks business at its core. The company offers a diverse and differentiated portfolio of great tasting brands such as the iconic IRN-BRU, market-leading RUBICON exotic fruit juice drinks, and the Scottish spring water STRATHMORE.

Versatile screening solutions for versatile and easy-to-manage factory segregation.

Why did A G Barr choose Klipspringer?

Easy to clean

With a simple bolt-together design, the SegriScreen from Klipspringer is both easy to put together and easy to take apart – while still remaining safe for use in food production environments.  This means that the screens are also very easy to clean regularly or as required, simply by reducing the frame tension and removing the screen material.  Given the importance of hygiene to any food processing facility, this was a key win for the team at A G Barr.

Reduced hygiene hassle

The mobile design of the segregation screens also means that the screens can simply be moved around as required.  In contrast to cumbersome and heavy non-mobile alternatives, this means that hygiene teams can simply reposition the screens in order to access the area or when conducting hygiene operations.  When finished, the screens’ castor brakes are applied to keep them safely in position.

Customised design for strong branding

Thanks to the in-house production process for SegriScreens, A G Barr were able to prominently showcase their branding on each of the screens.  Not only is this visually striking, it also gives the opportunity to add further custom messaging as required, for warnings, instructions or area names.

A professional and compliant solution

“We have worked with Klipspringer for some time. They are professional, listen to our needs and offer appropriate and compliant solutions, always. We are especially impressed with their bespoke products and in addition to these SegriScreen we have previously purchased shadow boards. We source much of our production equipment including colour coded equipment from them and we are always happy with the quality of the goods and the service they provide.”

Alex Wilson, Continuous Improvement Leader

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SegriScreen - Mobile Segregation Solutions

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Colour Coded Cleaning & Production Tools

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by Sam Smith

Bakkavor Desserts Newark

Bakkavor Desserts Newark

"Tidier, easier, and very fast" - How Bakkavor and Klipspringer adapted a popular cleaning solution to overcome a common problem

Adaptable Food Safety Solutions

One of the most common problems for large production sites with multiple shift rotations is missing equipment – in turn leading to product contamination and audit non-conformities. Addressing this, Emma Foreman, Bakkavor’s Dispensary Section Manager, initiated what turned out to be a site-wide improvement project working closely with Klipspringer.

With over 1,600 employees on-site, Bakkavor Desserts Newark is one of the UK’s biggest dessert factories. They also hold the prestigious title of the largest producer of fresh cream cakes in Britain! For this reason, Bakkavor’s food safety and compliance must be second-to-none; they face regular audits from customers and other third-parties, including compliance to the BRCGS Food Safety Standard.

The obvious solution to Bakkavor’s dilemma was shadow boards, a food industry staple for workplace management. But there was a complication.

As part of their food safety initiatives, one of the key aims across Bakkavor’s Newark factory was to stop permanently attaching items to walls. This is because permanent fixtures take time to move or cover up when cleaning, and also cause wall damage which can harbour unwanted microorganisms.

What’s more, drilling holes actually risked increasing Bakkavor’s insurance premiums due to compromising the wall’s fire protection – a serious consideration!

In response, Klipspringer introduced Bakkavor to the innovative concept of magnetic mounting. Instead of permanently fixing shadow boards to factory walls and running the risk of non-compliances, magnetic mounting allows boards to be repositioned during hygiene cleans.

In Emma Foreman’s own words, “Magnetic mounting has been beneficial to us as we have made some changes to the area and this has meant that where boards have been removed and repositioned there are no holes in the walls.”

Ensuring compliance with bespoke equipment and instrumentation stations.

Why Did Bakkavor Choose Klipspringer?

Systematised Workplace

No longer will production equipment ‘go walkabouts’. All utensils are accounted for and there when needed, limiting time wasted and improving workplace efficiency. The boards’ magnetic mounting also means Bakkavor’s team can reposition them during a clean without tearing holes in the walls.

Impeccable Customer Service

A decisive factor in Bakkavor’s decision to partner with Klipspringer was the guarantee of a well-organised, highly communicative approach. This was essential to tailoring the popular shadow board solution to meet Bakkavor’s very specific needs.

Personalised Package

Klipspringer maintained constant communication with Bakkavor throughout the process, determining their exact cleaning needs before formulating a personalised equipment solution.

In Bakkavor's words:

“I chose Klipspringer because of the excellent customer service and communication we had with their sales, service and design team. All of the team at Klipspringer that I have dealt with have been helpful and polite. Queries have been answered quickly and delivery from confirmation of design has been very fast.”

Emma Foreman, Dispensary Section Manager at Bakkavor Desserts Newark

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Shadow Boards

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Magnetic Wall Mounting

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Garth Dempster

Garth Dempster - Hygiene Consultant

Hygiene Consultant Garth Dempster Shares How to Protect Equipment During Washdowns

Partner of Choice

When Garth first approached Klipspringer, he had two main areas of concern he wanted addressing:

Firstly, the damage inflicted on factory equipment (particularly touchscreen control panels, which cost thousands of pounds) due to insufficient protection during routine hygiene washdowns.

Secondly, washdown contamination causing machinery that had already been cleaned having to be recleaned at the expense of production downtime, wasted water, and considerable cost.

Read on to find out how Klipspringer collaborated with Garth to innovatively overcome these concerns.

With more than ten years’ experience as a Hygiene Manager across multiple food and beverage manufacturers, Garth Dempster is now a well-respected Hygiene Consultant. His expertise covers both high and low-risk environments across a wide range of premium food production brands with BRCGS-certified factories.

Garth’s day-to-day responsibilities include staff transfers, audits and team training, hygiene management, consultations, and searching for adaptive methods to improve compliance and enhance operational efficiency.

Maximising hygiene and minimising downtime for one of the food industry's leading hygiene consultants.

Why did Garth Dempster choose Klipspringer?

Reduced Equipment Repair Costs

Washdowns are an unavoidable part of compliant manufacturing practice, but equipment damage is not. In Garth’s words: “My advice to anyone in a similar situation would be to look at how much time it costs to repair equipment and to speak to Klipspringer about the SegriCovers as they are a great help. They can easily be cleaned down and put away to dry in a safe place and be reused again and again.”

Adaptability

We adapted one of the most popular models in our Segri ‘Family’, the SegriScreen, specifically for this application, Gareth needed a screen large enough to cover a 7-foot Sancassiano mixer while avoiding bug traps and moisture harborage points. After multiple prototypes, the SegriCover was born – a bespoke, waterproof, and hygienic cover to protect machines and production items from both water ingress and contamination.

Reusable, Robust, Multi-Use Materials

Traditional washdown methods typically involve single-use covers or plastic binliners (see the first image above). Not only are these materials far less durable, but they are also environmentally damaging. According to Garth, SegriCovers “…also allowed us to reduce the amount of single-use plastic covers that we use on a clean down; we have to be a lot more mindful of the environment now and by using the SegriCover this has reduced our consumption of plastic bin liners massively.”

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SegriScreen

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SegriCover

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by Alex Blair