[AIB Auditor Profile] Auditor Profile: Ahmed Vavda

Ahmed Vavda has worked as a food safety auditor at AIB International for 7 years, but has been employed in the food industry for more than 30 years.

Vavda was born in a modest setting in India. From a young age, he knew that hard work was the only way to succeed in life. After graduating from university in India with a degree in chemistry, Ahmed moved to the UK in search of work. After a year of extremely difficult work in England, he accepted the first job he was offered as a quality control technician in a food manufacturing plant. Since that time, he continued to work in the industry, and moved to Canada in 1993.

Throughout his career, Vavda has been impressed by how receptive food companies are to change their practices and make suggested improvements. Soon after he began working at AIB, he visited a facility to provide its first food safety audit. The facility’s condition was unimaginable. Every single rodent trap he inspected had mice in it — one in particular had four mice. Every ingredient pallet had traces of rodent droppings. Storage practices and inaccessible voids throughout the plant provided harborage.

But, the most surprising sighting at this facility happened one year later. When Vavda returned the following year for an audit, the plant looked completely different. The management team had made tremendous improvements in a relatively short period. They passed their audit and have continued to make improvements every year since.

Food safety, particularly HACCP, is Vavda’s area of expertise. He specializes in helping food manufacturing facilities develop and implement HACCP plans. When he’s not auditing facilities or working on HACCP plans, he spends his hours providing training, participating in food safety conferences and presenting seminars at the Canadian Bottled Water Association.

Ahmed lives and works in Ontario, Canada. Although most of his work days are spent auditing facilities in Ontario, he does occasionally travel to Quebec and even New York for audits.

And after more than 30 years of experience, Vavda is still learning about food.
“The food industry is very dynamic and exciting,” he says. “I enjoy what I do.”

The author is Publication Coordinator, AIB International.