Background
Lewis Pies have been supplying quality savoury pastry products, breads and cakes across Wales and the UK for more than 80 years. The company’s original bakery was established in 1936 in Swansea by the late Wilfred Charles Lewis. It remains a family run business today, with Wilfred’s grandson, Wilf Jnr, the current Managing Director.
The company employs more than 120 people at their factory in Swansea West Business Park where the production facility is split into two areas, one which focuses on savoury bakes and one for Lewis Bakery breads and cakes.
Lewis Pies have a longstanding working relationship with ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre so the company contacted us for technical support when they were working towards the new BRCGS Food Safety Standard (Issue 8) and Halal Authority Board (HAB) certification.
Support from ZERO2FIVE
ZERO2FIVE’s technical team carried out extensive knowledge transfer in Food Safety Culture and other new elements of the food safety standard together with internal audits in order to verify the company’s quality management systems for compliance with the BRCGS Food Safety Standard Issue 8 and the HAB standards. We also provided practical mentoring to the team to effectively implement all actions required following the audits.
Lewis Pies successfully passed their BRCGS Food Safety Issue 8 audit in June 2019 and gained a Grade A. Two weeks later they passed their Halal Authority Board audit.
We continue to assist the company by carrying out scheduled mentoring, training and knowledge transfer which is verified by a series of internal audits to support continuous improvement of their food safety systems and ongoing BRCGS Issue 8 compliance. We have also assisted with the validation of on-pack cooking instructions for a new product range which is being developed for the UK retail sector.
Benefits of the support
In May, Lewis Pies started selling their luxury Wilfred branded pies through the QVC shopping channel. Following their first two shows, Lewis’s sold out of their allocated 9,200 units within a matter of hours.
Having BRCGS Food Safety Issue 8 accreditation has allowed the business to maintain their existing customer base including QVC, and secure a major new retail customer.
“ZERO2FIVE’s professional approach and expertise has been invaluable to our company and has helped us maintain our BRCGS and Halal certification by working alongside our technical team. This enables us as a company to secure major new contracts with wholesale and retail customers and to explore new ventures such as selling our products on QVC. We would highly recommend Project HELIX to food manufacturers who require technical assistance in obtaining accreditation.”
Kim Lewis, NPD Coordinator, Lewis Pies
