We are pleased to announce that Sterling Crew, FIFST, FCIEH, FRSPH, has joined Shield Safety Group as Strategic Advisor. In good company, he joins ex-FSA Head of Local Delivery, John Barnes, and Former Principal Policy Officer for the CIEH, Jenny Morris on the Strategic Advisory Board.
With experience as a regulator, retailer and manufacturer, Sterling brings unique insight on the future of the food industry to the team. During his 30 years within the industry he has worked in various capacities including food safety, governance, horizon scanning and innovation.
Sterling started his career working in local government as an Environmental Health Practitioner in West London, where he worked with the Department of Health on drawing up the Food Safety Act 1990.
During his career, Sterling has worked as a Technical Director at manufacturers Peter Black and Kolak Snack Foods. Whilst working at Kolak, Sterling was named Scientist of the Year at the Food and Drink Awards in 2015 as a result of his commitment to ‘food safety and sharing good practice.’ He has also had successful working partnerships in the retail sector with Marks & Spencer and Tesco as well as in the branded environment with Coca-Cola and Disney.
Sterling is extremely active in the food safety community and is Vice President of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, chairing its Food Safety Group and sitting on its Scientific Committee. He is also an active member of other boards including Campden BRI Science and Technology Committee and Eurofins governance board and many others. He is a popular presenter at conferences and a scientific and public health commentator with regular columns, including the Environmental Health News, with a number of papers to his name.
As presented at this year’s Food Manufacture Group’s Food Safety Conference, Sterling reflects our own beliefs in that developing a food safety culture is key, rather than focussing on just one area – for example training. Shield Safety’s approach to safety mirrors this, based around our continual cycle of improvement which connects all areas of Auditing, Policies & Risk Assessments, Training, Checks & Monitoring, Fire Risk Assessments and Safety Advice Line together resulting in a holistic safety culture and knowledge management.
On the reasons for his joining, Sterling Crew said:
“It’s a fantastic time to join Shield Safety, the company has seen some terrific growth in recent years and there’s a lot of potential for them to go even further.
I have been really impressed by the professionalism of the team that I’ve had the pleasure to meet so far and look forward to working more closely with them.
A particular strength is the software on offer, Compliance Centre. One of the challenges in today’s market is that people have a lot of data but not enough information. The Shield Safety approach stood out to me with their design to provide real-time information which enables people to make the right decisions.”
On this latest addition to the Shield Safety team, Founder and CEO Mark Flanagan, said:
“Sterling is a key influencer within the food industry, bringing to the team a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of the complexities of food safety within different industries. He understands the importance of technology in providing our clients with meaningful analytics, which is just one of the reasons he is such a good match to join us as Strategic Advisor. On behalf of the whole team, we wish him a huge welcome and look forward to working with him on some exciting ventures we have coming up.”
The information contained in this blog article has been created for marketing purposes and is not official guidance and should not be used as a substitute for official Food Safety, Fire Safety and Health & Safety advice. Shield Safety take no responsibility if the information in the blog article is used to form part of a safety management system or used to form part of any legal or regulatory compliance for your business. For official guidance and to engage with Shield Safety services please do call our team on 020 3740 3744 or email hello@shieldsafety.co.uk.
