PITFALLS TO AVOID

Aspiring Food Business Operators can experience grave difficulties if they do not approach their project with implacable logic and a clear view of the whole picture.  The most common pitfalls lurking to catch the unwary are:

• failing to identify the real needs of the business at an early stage in the process

• failing to recognise whether the plant can achieve the business objectives

• failure to achieve an operating licence by not consulting with the Food Standards Agency / Meat Hygiene Service early in the design phase

• halfway through the project, the client deciding to increase the extent of plant operations

• conflict between architect and designer, with the former not grasping the significance of meat plant requirements

• subsequent modifications to the design which incur additional expense

• subsequent modifications to the design which make it necessary to re-apply for planning permission or building warrant

• purchasing unnecessary equipment

• purchasing the wrong sort of equipment 

It is a source of continual frustration to Jack Shewring to be called in - long after a project has commenced - to help to remedy problems such as these.  Costs to the client have in some cases been immense, and inevitably create delays in the project. 

Some problems in any complex project are inevitable; the majority of the most common ones can be avoided by following a straight and logical pathway.

Unless someone - the designer - grasps the implications, the whole implications and everything about the implications of your project, there is grave danger of costly and possibly unsurmountable difficulties occurring later in the project.

It is false economy to omit the design stage, or to believe it can be undertaken by someone who has 'built one before' or 'has worked in a slaughterhouse so knows what is needed.'  There is considerably more to the whole picture than meets the eye.