This week we got to know Karine Lawrence from Sirocco Food + Wine Consulting. Sirocco provides training and consulting services to small and medium food and beverage businesses in Canada and the United States. Based in Kelowna, Sirocco also supports the local food and wine industry and facilitates food safety audits, gap assessments and the development and implementation of food safety plans.        

A small team of 4 food safety consultants, Sirocco Consulting takes pride in helping food businesses and food importers achieve compliance and business certification goals efficiently.  

Originally from France, Karine Lawrence, Founder and Principal Consultant has worked for the wine and food industry for over 25 years and brings expertise in Food Safety, Sensory Analysis and Regulatory Compliance. Sirocco’s specialty is Safe Quality Food (SQF) and HACCP certification programs. Current partnerships include working with the BC Beverage Technology Access Centre. Karine holds a Master of Food Science degree as well as a diplôme d’ingénieur (specialized in agri-food industries).

What is something you wish you knew when you first began?
Marketing is essential to achieve success in business. Professionals in technical fields often lack training in Marketing and Business Management. Sirocco started off as a food safety blog and evolved into an ecommerce website. We leveraged the internet and social media to tell our story.

What is something people might not know about your business? 

At Sirocco, we also provide food sensory services with a focus on wine sensory science. Karine Lawrence has been a BCVQA assessor for 8 years. She completed her master’s degree practicum project (UBC) in collaboration with Laughing Stock Winery. Her wine research projects have been published in Consumer Science and Strategic Marketing: Case Studies in the Wine Industry (Woodhead Publishing, 2019). She holds a WSET Level 2 Certificate.

What are you looking forward to/planning for the future? 
Mentoring is very important to us. We look forward to working more collaboratively on projects this year. We are excited to partner with Calgary-based Provision Food Safety to offer an electronic version of our SQF compliance document package.   

Learn more about Sirocco Consulting here: https://www.siroccoconsulting.com/