SAMPLE RECEIPT NOTIFICATION

Good day today my samples that I sent for testing have been received and accepted for testing, they have been given a project number overall and a samples testing number individually, these are the samples for microbiology for contaminants and shelf life health and safety use by dates and best before dates.  I will not receive these results until August 2021 as a one year shelf life is what I am aiming for at this first stage.

NOTIFICATION

HOT SAUCE SENT TO ALS LABORATORIES FOR TESTING

So excited, here I go...Today I have had all 11 individual samples of my Hot Sauce collected and taken to ALS Laboratories for the full panel of testing of microbiology, chemical and nutrition, pathogens and toxins, allergens, water activity and best before, use by and once opened storage and use by dates.  Some of the testing results will be back soon but I have to wait a full year for the shelf life safety date.

I will also get results on chemical and nutrition and allergens which are a legal obligation for labelling.  So my next job is to slightly re design my labels with the new nutritional information.

The paperwork !  This was very in-depth and as I and my PA’s are novices we found it very intense to navigate as there was no obvious continuity to link Chemistry, Microbiology and Allergens to the specific tests required, now if your science educated to a degree level I’m sure it is easy but I’m not!  However through a process of elimination we did work it all out and 106 paperwork pages printed, filled out and linked to each bottle individually along with the specific requirements to be labelled on each box I have finally been able to send my Hot Sauce off 😃

All organised and individual paperwork for each sample going to each testing section.

Professional bottle packing to ensure no breakages.

All boxed up with all the paperwork required and courier labels for collection and next day delivery

This was the final double check list that I was instructed to put on the box, now I took that literally as ON THE BOX, so I printed off the answers and taped this info on the outside of the box and just to be sure I also put a copy inside the box, that is something I’ve learnt from my mum and dad as they were self employed for all their working life you have to be very through and above and beyond.

The box information for ALS Laboratories to know which departments to send each of my individual samples.  The boxes had to be marked CHEM, MICRO or ALLERGENS, for each department.

That’s it I’ve sent my Hot Sauce off and here I go th e beginning of my professional career, I already have three wholesale company’s who have asked about stocking my Hot Sauce! 

MICROBIOLOGY FOOD ALLERGY TESTING FOR MY HOT SAUCE CO...

Now I’m on to the serious side of my sauce the health and safety of my sauce for public consumption and the SCIENTIFIC CONFIRMATION AND PAPERWORK to ensure this 😱  This is a really important part of my Hot Sauce Company structure.  So I have had to learn about what is required in order to sell a sauce in a shop or online, there are different laws, if I wanted to sell from a farmers market stall the legal requirements are less, but I want to set this company up to my best standards.

I’m loving putting my PA’s through this challenge, supporting me and helping me go the professional distance with my hot sauce company, a great learning experience for all of us as none of us have experience at this intense level, but that’s what I love, pushing the boundaries and not just mine! 

So I’ve opened a account with ALS laboratories one of the UK’s leading analytical testing services for food and I have requested full testing for my sauce including a shelf life as my sauce is ambient and a once opened safe use by date.

Testing Required 

Microbiology 

Microbiology:  ensuring food is safe from microbiology contamination, a legal requirement of all stages of the food chain.  Pathogens, salmonella, listeria, E.coli 0157, shigella, typical enumerations, coliforms, E.coli, enterobacteriaceae, pseudomonas aeruginosa, staphylococcus aureus, (TVC) total viable count, yeasts and moulds.

Chemical & Nutritional

Ash, fat, protein, carbohydrates, dietary fibre, energy, fatty acid profile, moisture, sodium, sugar, vitamins and minerals.

Food Allergy and Allergen Testing

There is 160 foods/ingredients that cause allergies but the top 14 have to be labelled by law.  Celery, celeriac, cereals including gluten, wheat, rye, barley, spelt, kamut, crustaceans including lobster, crab, crayfish, prawns, langoustines, eggs, fish, lupin including seeds, flour and pastas, milk, molluscs such as clams, mussels, whelks, oysters, snails and squid, mustard, nuts including almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecan, Brazil, pistachio, macadamia nuts, peanuts, sesame, soya beans (soya) and sulphur dioxide sulphites.

This is a very important legal requirement for labelling and legislation.

Contaminants

Substances natural or man made which have unintentionally contaminated food through the production process.  Toxins, bacterial, natural substances eg: mycotoxins and marine biotoxins, while bacterial/fungal contamination can be eliminated with heat treatment the toxins can remain in the sauce as contaminants.  These can be heavy toxic metals:  aluminium, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, tin. Mycotoxins: 3-acetyyl deoxynivalenol (3-ADON), 15-acetyl deoxynivalenol (15-ADON), aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, G2.  Aflatoxin M1, deoxynivalenol (DON), diacetoxyscirpenol (DAS), HT2 toxin, fumonisins, fusarenon X, Nivalenol, Ochratoxin A, Patulin, T2 toxin, T2 trill, Vomitoxin, Zearalenone.  Illegal Colours:  orange II, para red, rhodamine, Sudan I to IV.  Others: 3-MCPD (3-monochloro-1,2-propanediol), benzo(a)pyrene, dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs (polchlorinated biphenyls), GMO testing, Melamine, PAHs (polyaromatic hydrocarbons) and potato glycoalkaloids.

Vitamins, Minerals & Additives Testing

Miscellaneous Food Regulations define what can and can not be added to food.  Vitamin A (retinol), B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B4 (choline), B6 (pyridoxine), B9 (folic acid), B12 (cyanocobalamin), vitamin C (ascorbic acid), vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), vitamin E (tocopherol), vitamin H (biotin), vitamin K1 (phyllquinonine), vitamin K3 (menadione), beta carotene (pro vitamin A).

Trace Elements & Minerals

Calcium, cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, sodium, sulphur, zinc.

WoW

Thank goodness all I have to do is make my sauce and send it to the laboratory and they will do all of this.

WAX SEALS

I’m looking to stamp the top of my waxed seal bottles, this means I need a embossed seal.  There are 100’s to choose from but I like to be individual!  So I am experimenting, this week I have received a embossed seal that is of my King Oscar painting, it’s not quite right, I think I would like it bigger and encased in a circle rather than a square.  The company who make my pin badges did really well from my uploaded photo but this embossed seal is to small to show the detail. 

I have also got a simple O for Oscar which is larger, so now I think I will see if I can get my King Oscar image on a bigger stamp, I am thinking I might have to go to a expert to design the art work for the company.

I love the orange wax, I’m going also order some blue as well and do different bottles!

With lockdown still in force I am unable to make any hot sauce at present as I have no habaneros, this has made me re-think and I am going to grow my own, luckily my family has a small holding and we already grow our own vegetables and raise our own meat, I already grow my own carrots but now I’m going to try with the habaneros, I’m going to need a green house! 

AWESOME MERCHANDISE PIN BADGES

Very excited when this package arrived today, I love my point of sale give away merchandise enamel pins.  My label design was inspired by a painting a local artist (Teddy Salad Art) did as folk art of me and we all loved it, I then decided to use this painting as my brand on my hot sauce labels.  With lockdown for another few months for me I look forward to when I can move on with my hot sauce professional testing and labelling laws because then I can start producing and selling and giving away my awesome merchandise!

2.0 THE NEW BOTTLE DESIGN

With lockdown in full swing and especially for me I won’t be socialising for quite a few months, this not a issue for me as I have a great deal of projects on the go and lots of FaceTime and Zoom with all my mates.  I’m taking this time to research and develop my Profanity Hot Sauce.  I have decided that I want a bottle that is different to the rest on the shelf and have chosen a new dumpier bottle and to seal the cork stopper with wax, which I will, once designed stamp with my personality!

This now however means a total redesign of the label 😬. So art pads are out, white board is up and team work with lots of banter is going on putting some great and some silly ideas on the board to get us started.  One quote which I like is by my dad “ sauce you swear by’ 🤣

The New Bottle

I learnt a lot today with working with wax, it takes a long time to melt, it was incredibly hard to cut and mum almost lost a thumb!  Wax cools very quickly and if to hot becomes very thin for coating.  Also I don’t have a wax seal stamp so dad found a old pirate button of mine in the loft and I pressed to hard on the wax seal which I learnt cracks the setting wax, so in all great lessons today.

SCALING UP THE HOT SAUCE RECIPE

So I’ve got this awesome hot sauce but my recipe only makes 8 bottles and that’s not going to go very far!  So I’ve started to scale up the recipe and my sauce is not the same, still a brilliant sauce and has 90% of my original flavour BUT it is not my sauce and the texture has changed slightly, now I have been very accurate and scaled up the recipe exactly to the increased quantities, so why did this change the sauce?

So research on the mathematics for scaling up a recipe is what I have to.  

This has also given me time to re think my bottling, I wanted to give a good quantity of sauce in a bottle so I decided on a 250ml bottle, however as I work on producing this hot sauce I realised that as my sauce is so hot you only use a little each time and that size bottle could last a very long time!  The idea of my Profanity sauce is to blow your head off!  Most seriously hot sauces come in smaller bottles.

But I also want my Hot Sauce to stand out on the shelf, so I’ve designed my label fairly uniquely and very personal to my personality, but now I questioning is that enough?

So I’ve been thinking with my personality what can I do for that wow marketing catch your eye regardless if you were looking for my sauce or not?  So I have decided to try a a old fashioned wonky bottle and seal the cork top with a wax seal in orange wax of course!  This now means I have to design a wax seal stamp to emboss this wax.  I can’t wait to try this new bottle.

I’m almost ready to send my sauce of to the microbiologists for shelf life dating, nutritional analysis and allergy testing.  I’m pleased that my sauce has none of the main list of 14 allergy food items in it, is preservative free and made with all natural ingredients.