Flourishing Fullers scoops prestigious food safety award

Leeds-based Fullers Foods International has been honoured with a prestigious award for the company’s commitment to food safety.

Fullers has won the coveted Company Excellence category in the annual Verner Wheelock Awards.

Verner Wheelock of Skipton provide specialised food safely training for food manufacturers across the UK.

Jason Fuller, who owns and runs Fullers jointly with his brother Adam, was delighted with this award, saying: “As a company, we are committed in ensuring members of our technical team are appropriately trained in all disciplines commensurate to their roles, and complement our commitment to our quality culture strategy. This not only includes developing training programmes for new colleagues, but carrying out refresher training for existing team members.

“We have used Verner Wheelock for many years to provide solutions for all our training needs. They exceed our expectations in delivering a robust educational and training platform irrespective of the subject matter.
“We took the opportunity in 2021 to take advantage of people not travelling by stepping up our training programme, and were delighted to use Verner Wheelock to support this strategy. The result is that our colleagues continue to be energized and skilled in making key decisions in their day to day working environment.

“We are delighted that this commitment to continual improvement has been recognized by this award, and we will continue to develop and train our colleagues in the months and years to come,” added Jason.

The Verner Wheelock judges commented: “Fullers Foods, the winner of the Company Excellence Award has demonstrated a commitment to a culture of continuous improvement in food safety throughout their organisation.

“Their structured approach to training ensures that staff, from new starters to management, have an understanding of food safety and auditing skills at a level appropriate to their role. Delegates from the company have undertaken a variety of different training courses with Verner Wheelock to enable them to perform their jobs to the best of their ability and progress their careers within the food industry."

Fullers Foods’s commitment to food safety and the health and wellbeing of its employees was underlined last year when the company expanded its headquarters in the centre of the city to create a safer post-Covid environment for staff, adding another floor to its offices to help it operate in a spacious and healthy workplace.

The new fifth floor at Fullers’ HQ in Westgate is for clients, with the first four floors now devoted purely to staff. The company invested £600,000 in the refurbishment which included the addition of a predominantly glazed new fifth floor with panoramic views across Leeds.