MI becomes the embedded corporate team you've never been able to build in-house. We focus exclusively on the SQF system, implement your program, develop the loyal employees you already have into food safety leaders, and scale our support as your team grows. No revolving-door hires. No consultant dependency.
Small and mid-size manufacturers face real challenges with food safety. MI Consulting Group was built to solve every one of them.
A qualified SQF Practitioner costs $70K-$100K+ per year. Most plants don't have the budget, so they go without or settle for whoever they can find.
MI gives you an entire corporate food safety department starting at $5,000/mo, scaling down to $1,500/mo. More expertise than a single hire, at a lower cost, and we never leave.
You hire a specialist, invest months training them, and they leave. The knowledge walks out the door. Your long-term employees who know your facility best never get the chance to grow into the role.
Your loyal employees know your facility better than anyone. We train and coach them into food safety leaders, giving them a career path they never had access to. The knowledge stays with your company.
Most consultants build the system for you but never teach your team to run it. You pay them forever because you can't function without them.
Our tier model is designed to make your team self-sufficient. As your people grow, MI scales back and your costs go down. You choose when and how much to keep us involved.
Your SQF system lives in filing cabinets. Audits are stressful, records are hard to find, and nobody knows exactly what to do or when to do it.
We build your program in cloud-based software and establish a standard work schedule with every recurring activity, frequency, and owner clearly defined. No guesswork, ever.
When training and documentation are English-only, a huge portion of your workforce is disconnected from the food safety program they need to follow every day.
MI provides training, documentation, and coaching in both English and Spanish so every member of your team, from management to the production floor, is engaged and accountable.
MI operates as a dedicated corporate food safety department for your facility. We build your SQF system, establish the standard work, and develop your internal people - so the program runs long after we scale back.
We design your complete SQF system from scratch - HACCP plans, prerequisite programs, SOPs, forms, and logs - all tailored to your facility and built to last.
Your SQF program lives in cloud-based food safety software, not binders. Digital forms, checklists, monitoring logs, and workflows keep your team organized and audit-ready every day.
We establish every recurring activity your facility needs: internal audits, HACCP reviews, sanitation audits, management reviews, and training - with clear ownership and frequency.
Your best investment is in the loyal employees you already have. We train and coach them to grow into food safety leaders - the knowledge stays in your company, and your people stay because they see a future.
Our team provides training, documentation, and coaching in English and Spanish so every member of your production team understands and follows the food safety program.
Internal audits, SQF certification audit prep, mock recall drills, and crisis response. The high-skill work that even the strongest internal teams benefit from having corporate-level support on.
Think of this as a journey. Every client starts at the same place. Where you go from there is up to you. Stay at any tier that fits your company, or graduate all the way to independence. There's no wrong exit.
Full-Time Corporate Team
Part-Time Corporate Team
Your employees now lead day-to-day operations and take on most standard work. MI coaches them through it and handles select activities.
Partial Corporate Team
Your employees are now independent food safety leaders running all routine standard work on their own.
Every engagement is month-to-month. No locked-in timeframes. Graduation is based on your team's readiness, not a calendar. And if you love having MI as your full-time corporate team, you can stay at Tier 3 for as long as you want.
Most consultants want you to need them forever. We want your team to outgrow us.
A full-time SQF expert costs $70K-$100K+ per year and they might leave tomorrow. MI gives you an entire corporate team starting at $5,000/mo, scaling down to $1,500/mo as your existing employees develop. You invest in people who are already loyal to your company instead of gambling on outside hires.
Your long-term employees know your facility better than anyone. We give them the training, coaching, and career path to step into food safety leadership. They build real skills, earn new responsibilities, and stay because they see a future at your company.
Outside hires leave. We don't. Even at Tier 1, MI stays on as your corporate safety net for audits, recalls, and crisis support. And because we developed multiple people on your team, your food safety program never depends on one person walking out the door.
We establish every recurring activity your facility needs, with clear ownership and frequency at each tier. Your team always knows exactly what to do, when to do it, and who is responsible.
We focus exclusively on the SQF system. Every engagement makes us sharper. While generalist consultants spread their attention across a dozen standards, we go deeper on SQF with every client we serve. That focus means better results for your facility.
Four steps from where you are today to having your own corporate food safety team.
We learn about your facility, your current food safety program, and your SQF goals. No pressure, just a conversation about where you are and where you want to be.
We evaluate your facility against SQF requirements, identify what's missing, and build a customized roadmap with priorities and a standard work schedule.
MI comes on as your full-time corporate team. We build your SQF program, configure the digital platform, establish standard work routines, and start training your internal people.
As your team develops, you graduate to lower tiers and lower costs. MI scales from full-time to part-time to partial corporate support. Or stay at any tier that fits your company.
Founder & SQF Consultant, MI Consulting Group LLC
I started MI Consulting Group because I've seen firsthand how hard small and mid-size manufacturers work - and how much they're let down by a food safety consulting industry built around dependency, not development. My goal is simple: become your corporate food safety team, build the program right, train your people to own it, and make myself less necessary over time. That's what a real partner looks like.
Book a Discovery Call →MI Consulting Group didn't just consult. They became our corporate food safety team, built our entire SQF system, and trained our people to run it. We passed our first audit with confidence, and our internal team has never been stronger.
12 questions. 3 minutes. Get an instant readiness score and a personalized tier recommendation.
Answer 12 yes/no questions about your current food safety program. We'll calculate your score and recommend the right level of MI support for where you are today.
Real questions from manufacturers just like you - answered honestly.
For most small manufacturers, the question isn't whether you can afford to get SQF certified - it's whether you can afford not to. Major retailers, distributors, and co-manufacturing partners increasingly require SQF or an equivalent GFSI-recognized standard as a condition of doing business. Without it, you're locked out of accounts your competitors are winning. SQF also strengthens your internal food safety culture, reduces recall risk, and gives your team a system that actually works day to day - not just on audit day.
A qualified SQF Practitioner costs $70K–$100K+ per year in salary alone - before benefits, turnover risk, or the months it takes to hire and onboard the right person. MI gives you that same corporate-level expertise at a fraction of the cost, with no hiring risk and no knowledge walking out the door if someone leaves. More importantly, our model is designed to develop your existing employees into food safety leaders, so you're building internal capacity at the same time. A single hire builds one person's knowledge. MI builds your whole team.
Not at all - that's exactly what our BUILD tier is for. We start from wherever you are. If you have nothing in place, we build your entire SQF program from scratch: HACCP plan, prerequisite programs, SOPs, digital platform, and training. If you have some pieces in place, we assess what's there and fill the gaps. Take the SQF Readiness Quiz above to see where you stand - it takes about 3 minutes and gives you an honest picture of your starting point.
It keeps running - because it was built to run without us. That's the whole point of our model. From day one, we're training your internal people to own the program, not just execute instructions from a consultant. Everything lives in your cloud platform, everything is documented in your name, and your team develops the skills to maintain it independently. We're successful when you need us less. The program belongs to you, always.
Yes - and this is one of the things that makes MI genuinely different. We're fully bilingual in English and Spanish. Your floor team won't just receive translated documents - they'll receive real training, in the language they actually work in, from someone who can answer their questions directly. A food safety program that only reaches management is a program that fails on the floor. We make sure every level of your team understands the system they're responsible for.
Most facilities achieve initial SQF certification within 6–12 months from the start of our engagement, depending on where they're starting from. Facilities that already have some documentation and food safety structure in place tend to certify faster. After your gap assessment, we'll give you a realistic, honest timeline specific to your facility - not a generic estimate.
Yes. We're based in Bakersfield, CA, but we work with manufacturers across the United States. Most of our day-to-day engagement happens remotely through our cloud-based platform - real-time access to your records, checklists, and audit documentation from anywhere. On-site visits are available for facilities that need hands-on support during critical phases. Just ask about travel during your discovery call and we'll work out what makes sense.
That's a head start, not a conflict. Your internal person becomes one of the most valuable parts of the engagement - we work alongside them, not around them. We bring the SQF expertise, the program architecture, and the corporate-level structure. They bring the facility knowledge, the team relationships, and the day-to-day presence. Together, we develop them into an SQF leader who can run the program confidently long after MI scales back.
We don't let clients walk into audits unprepared. Before your certification audit, we conduct a full internal audit and a mock assessment so there are no surprises on audit day. If a finding does occur despite that preparation, we're in your corner immediately - helping you write the corrective action, document the fix, and communicate with the certification body. We've been through this process and we know how to get you through it.
We work month-to-month. No long-term lock-ins, no cancellation penalties. Our model is built around making you less dependent on us over time - not trapping you in a retainer you can't exit. You stay because the engagement is delivering value, not because a contract says you have to. When your team is ready to graduate to a lower tier or operate independently, we celebrate that outcome - it means we did our job.
Every manufacturer deserves corporate-level food safety support. Tell us about your facility and we'll find the right fit.
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