Training & The Team
Jazzy Cazzy's is run by me, Caroline Thomson - pleased to meet you! Jazzy Cazzy's is registered with Falkirk Council and I am currently the only person working at Jazzy Cazzy's. It's important that you know your products are being made following extremely high food health and safety standards and I put health, hygiene and safety first and foremost.
Here you can find out all of my experience during the last 19 years of working and being educated in the hospitality sector, and some pictures of recent certificates I have achieved. I keep my training ongoing so it is up to date and relevant.
I started working in the hospitality sector when I was 15 years old - selling pies at Brockville Football Stadium would you believe! I joined Pizza Hut UK in Falkirk as a kitchen team member and I was cross trained as a waitress. Pizza Hut invested a huge amount of time ensuring that all of their staff were fully trained in food health and safety and we followed strict standards for every part of food preparation and service. This really made me aware of the huge importance of health and safety in the industry and inspired me to carry out my work as safely as I could. In 2006 I went to Forth Valley College in Falkirk to study an HNC in Hospitality Management. During this course I gained my Food Hygiene Level 2 Certificate and I achieved an A grade pass in the course. This then allowed me access to the University of Strathclyde where I achieved my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Hotel, Hospitality and Tourism Management in 2010. After this I had various jobs in hospitality in hotels, bars and restaurants across Falkirk and then ended up going back to Pizza Hut to start my Hospitality Management career. I started off as a Shift Manager in 2013 and worked my way up to Restaurant General Manager and Hospitality Leadership Trainer for all of the UK restaurants. I led teams of up to 30 team members as a Restaurant General Manager in restaurants in Edinburgh and Stirling. Not only did I achieve intense training on food, health and safety, but I delivered this training to my team members. Each individual team member received hours and hours of food health and safety training by me, just like I had received when I started Pizza Hut all those years ago. I also got selected to train new managers over the UK on how to become better hospitality leaders which was also very rewarding!
Ultimately though, my dream all along was to start my own business and from a very young age! When I was very young I used to sell food and drinks to my cousins when they came over and they had to ask my Dad for money to be able to buy some! I used to set up stalls outside my house in the hope that some 'passer-byers' would stop and buy some! I used to draw pictures of my Jazzy Cazzy’s business and dream of a time I could run my own business one day in the future!
And due to 'unforseen circumstances' that day has finally come! To begin with I had a hurdle - I was made redundant from Pizza Hut. I was gutted! However! All was not lost as this kick started my drive to make my own business work, once and for all! So I began planning in December 2020 and started a soft launch in January 2021 which leads us to today. I achieved my Level 2 Food Hygiene and Safety for Manufacturing certificate and my Food Allergy and Intolerance Training in January 2021. I created my HACCP plan and Risk Assessments including one for Covid-19. I have a bulky piece of paperwork which is my Food Safety Management system which has been put together by me and states my food, health and safety practices - this has been studied and verified by an Environmental Health Officer at Falkirk Council - who has inputed so much time to help me get the practices spot on. I follow a Record of Monitoring House Rules guide which includes a daily and weekly cleaning schedule and ultimately records that all my safety procedures take place. If you too would like to be trained in food, health and safety a few websites offer free training such as the Food Standards Agency however some certificates do have a fee.
As you can see, food, health and safety is hugely important to me and I continue to update my training on a regular basis.
I hope you have found this information helpful. Please do let me know if you have any questions or would like to find out more, as I love to hear from you.
All the best to you,
Caroline Thomson (Jazzy Cazzy)
