From Practical Operations to Professional Auditing
I did not arrive at food safety auditing through a laboratory. I arrived through the floor.
I have worked in food manufacturing and quality operations, and that is where I learned the thing an audit most needs to test: the distance between what a procedure says and what actually happens when the run is behind and the shift is nearly over. Documentation tells you the intent. Production tells you the outcome. Those are not always the same thing, and the gap between them is where food safety is either held or lost.
My earlier academic and professional background is in accounting, finance and management. I mention it because it is more relevant than it first appears: auditing is fundamentally an evidence discipline, and that training taught me sampling, objectivity, documentation standards, and the difference between what somebody asserts and what can be substantiated. When I write a nonconformity, I write it the way I would write a finding that has to survive challenge.
In 2026 I formalised it. Between January and June I completed a structured program of qualifications: the Principles and Applications of HACCP, HACCP Validation and Verification, Quality Control Training, GMP for Food Safety and ISO 22000, Food Safety Culture at manager level, and Internal Food Safety Auditor certification against ISO 22000:2018 and ISO 19011:2018. That last certification is held through SAI Global and is valid to June 2036. I chose the sequence deliberately — hazard analysis first, then validation and verification, then the management system and the audit discipline that sits above both.
Businesses do not fail audits because they lack procedures. They fail because the procedure and the practice drifted apart, and nobody was measuring the gap.
Dhanu Audit exists because of a pattern the industry documents repeatedly: businesses that pass audits but do not improve. Certificates get renewed. Corrective actions get signed off. And the same nonconformity reappears the following year, sometimes word for word. That is not a documentation problem. It is a problem with how audits are conducted and how corrective actions are closed.
So I built the practice I would want as a client. Audits that examine how controls perform under normal operating pressure, not under audit-day conditions. Findings specific enough to act on, with the objective evidence attached. Corrective actions verified for effectiveness before they are closed. And a purpose-built platform, Dhanu AuditOS, that keeps the evidence chain intact from the first observation to final verification.
One thing I would rather say directly than have you work out. I completed my Internal Food Safety Auditor certification in June 2026, and Dhanu Audit is a new auditing practice. The industry experience behind it is real; the audit client list is not long yet. What I am offering is method, rigour and a serious evidence discipline. If a long client list is what your situation requires, engage someone who has one. If what you need is an auditor who will substantiate every finding, write it so you can act on it, and refuse to close a corrective action on a promise, that is exactly what this practice is built to do.
Auditing Philosophy
Why audits stop working
Food safety auditing has a credibility problem, and the industry knows it. Too many audits have become a scheduled inspection of paperwork — a day spent confirming that documents exist, records are signed, and the manual matches the standard. The site passes. The certificate is issued. And nothing measurable improves.
The cost of that is not administrative. It is the false confidence a business carries into the next twelve months, believing its controls are sound because an auditor said so. I audit against four commitments. They are not marketing positions — they are the decisions I make when an audit gets difficult.
Evidence over assumption
Every finding I raise is supported by objective evidence — a record, an observation, a measurement, a photograph, a sample of practice. If I cannot substantiate it, I do not raise it. Equally, if a control is claimed but cannot be evidenced, that gap is the finding. An audit opinion without an evidence trail is not an audit opinion; it is a personal view, and it will not survive scrutiny from a customer, a certification body, or a regulator.
Practice over paperwork
A procedure describes intent. Practice determines outcome. I audit what actually happens on the floor: how the changeover clean is performed when the next run is waiting, whether the operator can explain the critical limit without reading it, whether the metal detector check happens at the stated frequency or when someone remembers. Documentation review matters, but it is the starting point of an audit, not the substance of one.
Clarity over complexity
A finding that cannot be understood cannot be fixed. I write nonconformities in plain language: what was observed, where, when, which requirement it fails against, and why it matters. No coded severity language that requires interpretation. No findings so broadly worded that three people read them three different ways. If the person who has to fix it needs to call me to understand it, I have written it poorly.
Closure over reports
The audit report is not the deliverable. The improvement is. A corrective action is closed when there is evidence the cause has been addressed and the control is working — not when a form has been returned with a due date and a signature. That means verification of effectiveness, at a point in time far enough out to prove the fix held. It is slower. It is the only closure that means anything.
The four pillars, in practice
| Pillar | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Evidence-Based | Every finding is linked to objective evidence captured at the time of observation — records, measurements, photographs, or documented statements. The evidence stays attached to the finding through to closure, so any reviewer can trace the conclusion back to what was actually seen. |
| Practical | Audits are conducted under normal operating conditions wherever possible. Findings account for how the site genuinely runs — throughput pressure, shift patterns, staff turnover — so that corrective actions are achievable rather than aspirational. |
| Independent | As an external auditor, I have no operational stake in the outcome and no commercial interest in a particular result. Findings are reported as observed. Where a control is effective, that is recorded as clearly as where it is not. |
| Technology-Enabled | Dhanu AuditOS maintains the full evidence chain from planning through verification. Clients receive structured, traceable output rather than a document assembled from handwritten notes after the fact, and corrective action status is visible rather than buried in an email thread. |