The family owned and operated company, Verner Wheelock Associates (VWA), has  a reputation  as a centre of training excellence in food safety, HACCP and nutrition as well as a range of speciality courses, including the very popular and highly successful ‘Creating Savoury Flavours.’

“We have built our reputation on the high standard of our food safety  and nutrition training but this specialist course has added a new dimension to the business and it is particularly rewarding that our message is being heard all over the world, said Dr Verner Wheelock, a highly acclaimed scientist and nutritionist, who established VWA in 1990. His wife, a former teacher, is head of training and daughter, Alison, is head of marketing.

The reputation of VWA is such that it now attracts delegates from all the over the world. Recent speciality courses, to find new flavourings for savoury dishes, included students from Australia, the United States, Vietnam, Russia and South Africa.

A recent course was the third course of its kind comprising a structured mix of lectures and practical, laboratory based sessions which were led by two experts in their field, a food technologist, Richard Seal, who specializes in snack flavours and a flavour chemistry expert, Dr David Baines, who is the current president of the British Society of Flavourists. Malsis School in Cross Hills hosted the laboratory sessions.

“This lab based course gave flavourists, product developers and project managers from leading flavour companies such as Kerry Ingredients and Flavours and Nestle, a chance to step outside their normal work remit to focus on the components and construction of savoury flavours. Delegates enjoyed the opportunity to create their own process flavours from scratch as well benefitting from lectures on flavouring legislation – especially focusing on the new regulations that will be implemented in the EU in 2010”.

Dr Wheelock is also a leading campaigner for healthy eating in schools and following the new Government guidelines in 2006, he established a dedicated website aimed at parents, teachers, headteachers, teachers and governors, to help them with vital information about healthy meals and snacks. His handbook of case studies, ‘Healthy Eating in Schools’ has since become essential reading.

VWA provides training for all sorts of businesses from sandwich shops to blue chip corporates and some of its high profile clients have included Sainsbury’s, Warburtons, McVities, HJ Heinz, Ginsters Ltd, Bettys and Taylors, Dairycrest and Robert Wiseman Dairies as well as public sector clients especially local government and county councils and primary care trusts.