Every field checked for completeness, technical accuracy and whether anyone could verify it against a delivery.
A product specification review checks whether your specifications describe the product accurately, completely and in a form that can be verified. A specification is the contract between what was agreed and what arrives, so every field has to be something someone can check against a delivery. Fields that cannot be checked are decoration, and they are the ones that fail at audit.
The test applied to every field is simple. Could goods receipt take a delivery and check it against this line? Where the answer is no, the field is doing nothing, and an auditor comparing a specification against a delivery record will find the same gap.
Field by field assessment, technical corrections, a verifiability check and a compliant template for future products. Delivered remotely, in any language, quoted on scope.
Ten field groups, each with the failure it attracts most often.
| Field group | What it must show | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Product identity | Legal name, product code, pack format and the process it was made by. | A commercial name with no legal name, so nobody can confirm what the product legally is. |
| Composition | Full ingredient declaration with percentages, including compound ingredients broken down. | Compound ingredients listed as one item, hiding allergens and additives. |
| Allergen status | Allergens present, allergens handled on site, and the basis for any precautionary statement. | Product level allergens only, with nothing about what else runs on the line. |
| Microbiological criteria | Organisms, limits, sampling plan and the method, at release and at end of life. | A limit with no method or sampling plan, which cannot be tested against consistently. |
| Chemical and physical criteria | Contaminants, additives, foreign body limits, and the analytical method for each. | Criteria copied from another product with different risks. |
| Organoleptic and analytical | Appearance, texture, flavour, plus pH, water activity and moisture where they control safety. | Descriptive words with no measurable parameter behind them. |
| Shelf life and storage | Life assigned, the basis for it, storage conditions and conditions after opening. | A life set by convention with no stability or growth evidence. |
| Packaging and labelling | Pack materials, food contact compliance, label copy and the date format used. | No declaration of compliance for the food contact material. |
| Traceability and coding | Lot coding format, where it appears, and what granularity it gives. | A code format that would make any recall cover a full day of production. |
| Approval and version | Version number, issue date, review date, and who approved it on both sides. | No version control, so nobody can tell which specification a delivery was made against. |
Eight failures, and the first is the one that makes the rest possible.
A specification full of statements nobody can check against a delivery. If goods receipt cannot test it, it is not doing the job the document exists for.
The product changed and the specification describes the old version. Everything downstream, including the label and the customer's own records, is now wrong too.
A number with no test method and no sampling plan. Two laboratories can return different results and both be correct, and the limit cannot be enforced.
Limits carried across from a product with a different process, a different water activity and a different risk profile. The numbers look rigorous and mean nothing.
What is in the product, with nothing about what else the site handles. The customer cannot assess cross contact risk, which is the reason they asked.
Undated, unnumbered specifications. When a complaint arrives nobody can establish which version the delivery was made against, so the dispute cannot be settled.
Issued and filed with no customer or supplier sign off. An unagreed specification is a statement of intent and carries no weight in a dispute.
A life assigned on convention or on what a competitor does. Where the product supports growth, that figure needs stability or challenge data behind it.
Corrections are supplied per document, so they can be applied without interpretation.
| Element | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Per specification assessment | Each document reviewed field by field against what it should contain. |
| Missing field list | What is absent, and why each matters to a customer or an auditor. |
| Technical corrections | Errors in criteria, limits, methods and declarations, corrected. |
| Verifiability check | Fields that cannot be tested against a delivery, flagged for rewriting. |
| Consistency check | Specification against label, against recipe, and across the product range. |
| Evidence gaps | Where a criterion or a shelf life needs data that does not exist yet. |
| Compliant template | A specification template covering every required field, for future products. |
| Customer format mapping | Where a customer imposes their own format, what maps across and what is missing. |
Food manufacturers, processors, packers, brand owners and private label suppliers. It suits any business supplying a customer who imposes their own format, and any operation whose goods receipt has nothing solid to verify deliveries against.
A customer has rejected or queried your specifications.
Specifications predate a reformulation.
Microbiological limits have no method or sampling plan.
Allergen information covers the product and not the site.
Raw material specifications are missing for packaging.
Specifications have no version control.
A retailer has imposed their own specification format.
Shelf life is assigned with no evidence behind it.
You send the specifications in scope, the matching recipes, current labels and any customer format you have to populate.
Each specification is checked field by field against what it should contain for that product type.
Criteria, limits, methods and sampling plans are checked for whether they suit the product and the process.
Every field is tested against one question: could goods receipt check a delivery against this?
Specification, recipe and label are compared, and the range is checked for divergence between sister products.
Corrections are supplied per document, alongside a compliant template for future products.
Laboratory analysis. Where a criterion or a shelf life needs data, the review states what testing is required.
Populating customer portals. The review supplies the content and mapping, and entry into a retailer system stays with you.
Label artwork, which is covered by a food label compliance review.
Every review is quoted against its own scope. Six specifications for one product family and a range of eighty across several customers are very different pieces of work. These factors set the price.
These are the primary sources this work is built on. Where a market you sell into has its own requirement, that takes precedence and we assess against it.
Product identity including the legal name, full composition with percentages, allergen status covering both the product and the site, microbiological criteria with methods and sampling plans, chemical and physical criteria, organoleptic and analytical parameters, shelf life with its basis, packaging and food contact compliance, traceability and coding, and version control with approval on both sides.
Fields nobody can verify. An auditor takes a specification, takes a delivery record and checks whether one was tested against the other. Where a criterion has no method or no sampling plan, or describes something unmeasurable, that check cannot be made and the specification is not controlling anything.
For every material affecting product safety or legality, yes. That includes packaging and food contact materials, which are among the most frequently missing. Goods receipt has to have something to verify a delivery against, and without a specification it is accepting on trust.
Because different methods give different results for the same sample. A limit without a named method and a sampling plan cannot be enforced, cannot be disputed and cannot be relied on in a complaint. The number on its own is not a criterion.
Yes. A customer needs to assess cross contact risk, which depends on what else runs on the line and in the facility. A specification listing only what is in the product answers half of what was asked, and it is the half the customer already knew.
Both sides. An unagreed specification is a statement of intent. In a dispute over a rejected delivery, what matters is which document both parties signed and which version was current at the time.
On a defined interval, and immediately after any change to the recipe, the process, the packaging, a supplier or the standard. A reformulation that leaves the specification untouched puts every downstream document out of step.
Populate theirs and keep your own. Customer formats are built around their systems and frequently omit fields you need internally. The review maps what carries across and what is missing from each, so neither document is quietly incomplete.
Where the product does not support growth and that can be evidenced from its own properties, reasoned assignment can be defensible. Where it does support growth, the life needs stability or challenge data behind it. A figure taken from a competitor's pack is not a basis.
A label review checks what appears on pack against information law. This checks the underlying specification, which is where the label's content comes from. A wrong specification produces a wrong label, so the specification is the better place to start.
Any number, and a range costs less per document than individual reviews because composition and criteria overlap. Reviewing a range together also surfaces inconsistency between sister products, which single reviews miss.
A per specification assessment, a missing field list, technical corrections, a verifiability check flagging fields nobody could test, a consistency check against label and recipe, evidence gaps, a compliant template for future products, and customer format mapping where one applies.
Confi Food assigns work by subject. HACCP, labelling, certification standards, regulatory compliance, supplier assurance and monitoring are separate disciplines, and each piece goes to someone who works in that area. Every deliverable is reviewed internally by a second specialist before it reaches you.
Our technical positions are built from primary sources, meaning the legislation, the competent authority, Codex Alimentarius, the certification scheme owner or the relevant standards body. We set out how that works in our technical review and editorial policy, and what happens at each stage of an engagement in how Confi Food works.
A full legal review of your product label against the food information rules of every market you sell into.
Read about Food Label Compliance Review →A review of the documentation you hold for each supplier, checking it is current, complete and covers the material you buy.
Read about Supplier Document Review →Certificated course covering food information law, claims and market specific labelling.
View Certified Global Food Labeling Specialist →Expert consulting for meeting retailer food safety and supplier requirements worldwide.
See Retailer Food Safety Standards Consulting →Expert shelf life testing consulting worldwide. Challenge studies, durability trials, growth/no-growth modelling, and shelf-life study design aligned with the EU's...
See Shelf Life Testing Consulting →Send the specifications, the matching recipes and any customer format you have to populate, and receive a written quote covering the scope, the deliverable and the price.