Somebody who has been audited, not just trained to audit

Quality Minar is a food safety, quality and compliance consultancy based in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, working with food manufacturers across India and into export markets.

Our technical principal, Jay Balpande, spent four years managing food safety and quality assurance at a GFSI-certified plant-based dairy facility in Ontario — a co-manufacturing site producing for a portfolio of brands across global markets.

He authored the protocols and held quality oversight across the entire portfolio — overlapping specification sets, allergen and label profiles and customer audit regimes, all running on one set of lines — alongside multiple SQF recertification audits, a CFIA licensing regime and FDA registration. It is a materially harder problem than running a single brand, and it is the same problem every Indian co-packer and contract manufacturer faces.

That is the difference the plants we work with tend to notice. Preparing for an auditor is a different skill from having sat on the other side of the table while one worked through your records. We know which document an auditor opens first, which answer from an operator ends the conversation, and which corrective action closes a finding as opposed to merely responding to it.

We did not name those brands. We will not name yours — the same discretion applies.

We are deliberately small and intend to stay technical. Every engagement is led by someone who has run a certified plant, not handed to a junior with a checklist.