If you’re a food business owner in British Columbia, you’ve probably heard about the IAF BC food safety grants. In this two-part series, I’ll walk you through unconventional but high-impact ways to use IAF BC funding that directly strengthen your food safety system, audit readiness, and customer confidence.
This is Part 1, where we focus on validation, audits, and building real credibility.
Why “Smarter” Grant Spending Matters More Than Ever?
Every food manufacturers are only limited to CAD 25,000 co-sharing cost grant from the IAF BC Food Safety programs.
You have limited resources. Now, how do you maximize your grant funding, depending on your actual business’s needs?
We recommend using them to build your food safety foundations to
- Reduce audit non-conformances
- Protect contracts with retailers and distributors
- Strengthen your HACCP or SQF certification outcome
- Prove due diligence if CFIA ever knocks (many scrambles for lack of programs and implementation). Remember, CFIA has the authority to suspend a food facility license.
You certainly do not want to go through the rabbit holes of regulatory actions.
Let’s talk about where that money really moves the needle.
Building a Food Safety Plan that Works
Some food safety plan is easier to write than others. Some have proper validation data and reference. Some require validation studies, and if you need a validation study, this is where the grants can really help.
Validation studies can cost thousands to tens of thousands, due to the experiment design, microbial testing and lab involvement, expert requirements and report writing.
When we review a client’s food safety plan through a gap assessment, we also review if a validation study is needed to ensure you don’t get caught in the process of not having a validated food safety program.
Another cost is on the environmental monitoring and Listeria monocytogenes in Ready to Eat Foods.
One of our clients had to build a listeria monocytogenes policy for ready-to-eat foods, and to meet CFIA requirements, we needed at least 25 swabs. Imagine a swab costing a $100 that you pay to the lab (not me), it is at least $2500. Not to mention that if you have a pathogen finding (ie positive listeria), you need to retest the surfaces.
These costs can add up.
If your facilities are prone to Salmonella spp, you need to set up a baseline for Salmonella spp environmental sampling too.
IAF BC Funding can be used to cover some of these baseline studies and tests.
Funding to Cover the Actual HACCP or SQF Audit Cost
Cost of at least CAD 5,000 for an actual audit can be costly for a food manufacturer and a barrier to obtaining a HACCP or SQF Certification.
The problem is that food manufacturers sometimes need these to sell to larger retailers such as COSTCO, Whole Foods, Walmart, etc., to get more sales. It is like chicken and egg, who comes first here?
Audit costs aren’t “expenses”, they’re risk protection
One failed audit can cost far more than the audit itself:
- Lost customers
- Delayed market access
- Emergency corrective actions
Without a certification, market access is limited. However, it can be a huge cost for a food business.
Accessing the funds through the IAF BC Grant allows food manufacturers to recover some of these costs for their first audit and put the savings back into growing their businesses.
We have helped a few food businesses access and receive food safety certification through this program.
Preparing Proper Food Safety Training and System
Culture changes faster when people understand why
Training is often rushed or treated as a checkbox. But when staff understand the why, the risk, the team’s overall accountability increases.
IAF BC funding can be used to support various food safety training and consultation, such as HACCP training and GMP training. Working with us really means that we are providing training to your team directly,y as we continuously deliver training for your team.
Plus, if you are working with us for the full food safety program implementation through your first audit, we are also offering free HACCP training to support your team and help with the cost.
Ready to Use the IAF BC Grant Funding Strategically?
If you’re unsure how to align IAF BC funding with audit success, that’s exactly where I help.
Book a strategy call to map funding to real food safety outcomes:
👉 https://tidycal.com/sfpmconsulting/strategy-call
📞 Or call 1-236-513-2488
Food safety funding isn’t just money. It’s leverage when used correctly. It is the best insurance you purchase for your food businesses.