[[ VeryUseful Food ]]
You make the food.
This keeps the proof.
For New Zealand food manufacturers who run their own Food Control Plan, VeryUseful Food replaces the folder, the clipboards and the spreadsheets with one system. It guides every batch, won't release a batch until its records are complete and its ingredients match the label, and has the evidence ready when the verifier, or a recall, calls.
The problem
There are two jobs
Making good food is the first one. Proving it was made safely is the second, and it is the one that eats the evenings — temperature logs, batch sheets, delivery dockets, and the folder that has to make sense to someone else when the verifier is standing in your office.
[[ The folder ]]
Kept for the verifier, built from paper that was filled in on the floor three months ago.
[[ The allergen ]]
A substituted ingredient carries something the label doesn't declare, and nobody on the floor knows.
[[ The phone call ]]
"Which of my customers got that lot?" — and the answer is a day in the spreadsheets.
[[ The new hire ]]
Your way of doing things lives in one person's head, and they're on leave.
[[ What you get ]]
What it does for the business
Not a compliance project. The records get made as the work happens, by the people doing the work, and the proof is a by-product.
One place instead of six
One place instead of the folder, the clipboards and six spreadsheets.
Your team knows the next step
Your team sees the next step and the number to hit, right where they are working. New staff do it your way from day one.
Nothing goes out that shouldn't
A batch can't go out until its records show it was made right.
You know who has it
If something goes wrong, you know who has it in minutes, not after a day in the spreadsheets.
No surprises at the audit
You find the gaps on a Monday morning, not at the audit.
Your records are yours
Your records are yours. If you ever leave, you keep all of it.
When the rules change, you hear what it means
We watch the legislation and the standards that apply to you, and we tell you what a change means for your plan. That part is a service from us, not a notification from a system.
Records kept for as long as the law says
Every record is classified when it is made, with the retention the regulations require already on it.
[[ Who it's for ]]
A food maker with its own plan
A New Zealand food or drink manufacturer, roughly 5 to 50 staff, running its own custom Food Control Plan or Risk Management Programme — because it wholesales, exports, or processes dairy, meat or honey.
It fits best when:
- You wholesale to distributors or other food businesses, so someone else's recall is your phone call too
- You make in more than one place — another site, a cart, a truck, a mobile operation
- You carry claims that get audited on their own cycle — organic, gluten-free, halal
- You handle nuts, or anything where an undeclared allergen is a recall
If you're on a template plan off the MPI website, there are cheaper checklist apps that will suit you better, and we'll say so.
The engine room
Built on VeryUseful Records
VeryUseful Records is the document platform we build and own. It holds the records, keeps every version and who changed what, and keeps a whole business's information in a single file the customer owns. Food is what sits on top of it — the part that knows about Food Control Plans, batches, allergens, suppliers and recalls.
That division matters for one practical reason: the entire gelato application was built without changing the platform underneath it. Which is why your own procedures, recipes and suppliers can be set up for you, rather than coded for you.
[[See VeryUseful Records]][[ The ask ]]
Looking for founding businesses
It's in development, and we're looking for the first few food makers to shape it with us. The software is free while we do that, and we set it up for you at a founding-client rate — your procedures, your recipes, your suppliers, loaded and working.
In return: your honest feedback, and — if it earns it — your name on a case study. There's a one-page agreement, so everyone knows where they stand.
Start a conversation
Very Useful Technology Limited, Horowhenua.
[email protected]