You might not have heard the name Verner Wheelock Associates, but within the food industry it is synonymous with training excellence.
Household names McVitie’s, Müller, Warburtons, Princes, Heinz, McCains and Bradford-based supermarket giant Morrisons are among its many clients. Founded in 1990 by Dr Verner Wheelock, a former Head of the Food Policy Research Unit at the University of Bradford, the company is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.
It is significant that Verner Wheelock Associates (VWA) was established in 1990 as it is the same year that the Food Safety Act came into force, and so it became an offence for anyone to sell or process food for sale which is harmful to health. In fact, VWA’s first major seminar and workshop on food safety was entitled ‘Implications of the Food Safety Act.’ It was attended by over 100 delegates and proved so popular that several more were scheduled over VWA’s first 18 months in business. The company was off to a flying start!
“Back in the early days we delivered fewer courses and focused much more on consultancy and conferences, with more emphasis on nutrition. However, as the legal requirement for food safety training grew in importance, this side of the business also grew,” explains Alison Wheelock, Verner’s daughter and Managing Director of VWA since 2012.
Courses in Food Safety, HACCP and Nutrition followed, accredited by the Royal Institute for Public Health (RIPH – now the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH)) and in the mid-1990s VWA trained its first award-winning student, who achieved the highest marks in an RIPH food safety examination. The prize – two tickets for Centre Court at Wimbledon! This was just the first of many RSPH awards in Food Safety and HACCP for Verner Wheelock delegates, until the awards stopped in 2019.
Over the following years Verner, his wife Jan, and the rest of the team recruited more trainers and delivered more courses. VWA’s reputation as a top-quality trainer to the food industry continued to grow. In fact, a considerable number of customers from the early days are still training with VWA today.
Fast forward to 2012 when Alison took over the reins as Managing Director, having worked in the company for the previous seven years. This period saw great innovation. As well as the popular HACCP and Food Safety courses, the existing suite of Auditing courses were updated and endorsed by FDQ, Food and Drink Qualifications and more specialist courses such as Legal Labelling and Managing Food Allergens were introduced.
Having provided ethical audits since around 2005, in 2018 VWA acquired Keith Stamp Social Auditing (KSSA) and Ethical Auditing to expand their client base on this side of the business. There is now a small team of people running the ethical audits at VWA with freelance auditors based around the UK carrying out the audits, with a focus on farms and food production. The audits aim to make sure that workers are treated and paid fairly and have safe working environments and regular work.
Verner Wheelock continue to innovate, developing and delivering new courses in response to the food industry’s needs. This year, four new courses are on the curriculum: Sustainability in the Food industry, Crisis Management, Foreign Body Prevention and Investigation, and a workshop for Quality Assurance Technicians and Auditors.
The business has continued to go from strength to strength. The calendar is full to bursting with open and in-house training. Courses are regularly doubled-up due to demand, and there have even been instances where the same course has been delivered simultaneously with three different trainers. There are currently 28 different courses, as well as the option to write and deliver bespoke in-house courses tailored to specific customer requirements.
This isn’t the only way that VWA have remained at the top of their game. Whilst other companies closed or furloughed their staff during the Covid 19 lockdown, Verner Wheelock continued to train food industry employees.
“Prior to Covid we had already delivered one or two training courses for overseas delegates using the Zoom platform,” says Alison, “so it was a natural progression to roll this out once face-to-face interaction had to stop. It meant that we could keep training food companies throughout the pandemic, and our customers were mainly key workers, so their production was able to continue.”
VWA also offered their online Basic Food Safety and Hygiene course free of charge to food businesses during the lockdown period so entry-level food operators could be trained quickly as part of recruitment drives.
VWA found that even after lockdown, businesses still wanted remote delivery courses as an option. After seven years in Bradford and twenty-five years on the Broughton Hall Estate, they moved in 2022 to their current premises in Belle Vue Mills, Skipton. The new training room was kitted out with state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, allowing hybrid courses to be run where delegates can attend either face-to-face or remotely.
“The remote option has opened up access to delegates who might not have travelled from, say, Aberdeen or Cornwall, for a one-day course,” adds Alison. We’ve even had delegates from overseas attending without having to travel; and of course, for in-house training, staff from different sites around the UK or abroad can join the same course.”
What does Alison attribute to VWA’s success? “Well firstly, we aim to provide the type of training that our customers want. We do this by listening to them and by keeping ourselves appraised of what’s happening in the food industry. We are also aware of the industry standards such as the BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety.
“Our trainers are all highly experienced in their fields, having worked within the food industry themselves for several years. This is really important because it means that they understand the day-to-day challenges of our delegates and can make key learning points relatable via real-life examples. They are also able to answer any questions delegates might have… and of course, great training delivers excellent examination results.
“People always receive a warm welcome on our courses and enjoy coming back. We’re flexible, offering remote or face-to-face training and our trainers travel all around the UK (and even abroad) delivering courses to trainees at their own premises. We issue feedback forms following each course to gauge customer satisfaction to find out where we can improve. We strive to be the best we can be.”
