We passed our first inspection with a copy of our plan and a spreadsheet. Here's what we'd hand over now.

In 2015, Off The Deck Hot Sauce had its first state inspection. We were one of the first makers of fermented packaged foods in the state to go through one. The batch on the schedule that day was Habanero #Hustle.

Because it was a first, the inspector covered everything in depth. It took a while.

Getting ready

We were nervous, so we didn't walk in cold. We brought in a food safety consultant, who took us through our HACCP plan step by step and made sure it held up. That plan is the written version of what could go wrong with your product and how you keep it from happening.

Then the consultant played inspector. We ran a full mock inspection, and the questions got technical, mostly about how lacto fermentation works and how we controlled it. Answering them out loud once, with nothing on the line, made the real day a lot calmer.

What the inspector looked at

01. The plan. The inspector started by making sure ours was accurate.

02. Every area of the kitchen. Dry storage, the walk-in, the workspace and the dish room. In each one, they asked about our process there.

03. The ferment itself. Last, they watched us set up the batch. They were looking at cleanliness: how we washed the produce, how we prepared the fermentation vessel, and how we sanitized in general.

What we had ready

We had a copy of the plan on hand and our tracking spreadsheet open. For every batch, it held the product, the fermentation start date, the packaging date, the pH at packaging, the yield and a column of general notes.

It did the job, but it wasn't easy to keep right. The hard part was making sure every entry was consistent and landed in the right cell, especially when we were editing it on a phone in the middle of production.

We passed, with good answers for every question. It felt like the moment we were ready to go pro, and it was. Passing opened the door to wholesale and to selling online across state lines.

Three inspectors later

Inspections are fairly routine for us now. We've had three different inspectors over the years, and the pattern holds: the first visit with a new inspector always goes deeper. Having our records in order is what keeps those first visits smooth.

What we'd hand over now

If an inspector walked in tomorrow, we'd pull two things out of FourFoxes: our CCP reports (the record of the temperature and pH checks you already do on every batch) and our batch reports. Then we'd ask whether there's anything specific they'd like to look at closely, and get back to work.

The phone problem from the spreadsheet days is the one we built around. FourFoxes is fully functional on a phone, with screens laid out for production, so logging a check in the kitchen doesn't mean squinting at a spreadsheet cell. Ingredient purchases attach to the batch with their lot codes carried across. The reports come straight from what got logged during production, so nothing gets retyped the night before. If a check gets missed, it shows up without anyone having to go looking for it.

Asking what they'd like to see matters, too. Inspectors in different places want different things, so we ask instead of assuming.

Inspectors aren't the enemy

"Inspectors are not the enemy. They see the worst every day. We care deeply about making safe products. So while it is a hoop that has to be jumped through, it is there for a reason." Jeremiah, co-founder of Off The Deck Hot Sauce and FourFoxes

Before your first one

01. Understand why inspectors do what they do. They see the worst cases every day, and their questions come from that.

02. Get your paperwork in order. For us that meant a consultant and a mock inspection. Expect the same depth any time a new inspector takes over your file, and have the records ready for it.

03. Don't try to hide anything. You care about making a safe product. Let that show.