Food Product Development (NPD) for Management: Funding, Gate and Launch Decisions

Food product development (NPD, new product development) for management is the set of decisions directors and commercial managers make about new food products. In the course case, funding on score alone gives R1 100 000 to a chilled curry the food safety gate should stop. This 4 hour online course is for managing directors, general managers, finance and operations heads, and the commercial and marketing managers who write briefs and deal with retail buyers. You learn which projects to fund, hold or kill, what a brief may promise a retail buyer, and when a product is ready to launch. You work from the executive committee of a South African food group, on twelve projects competing for one budget, a retailer’s plant-based range and a sugar levy business case. It ends in a gate decision on your own case variant.

Twelve projects ask for more than twice the budget, a general manager wants one kept because R650 000 is spent, and a buyer wants claims nobody has proved yet

You sit on the Group Executive Committee of Thuthuka Foods Group as managing director, commercial director or marketing manager. The group owns Thuthuka Fresh Meals (chilled ready meals), Amanzi Beverages (still drinks) and Karoo Meat Processors (processed meat). Twelve NPD projects ask for R16 400 000 against a budget of R8 000 000. The general manager of Thuthuka Fresh Meals wants TFM-2, a MAP chilled curry range on a 21-day life, kept alive because R650 000 is already spent on it. A retailer wants a plant-based mince and bobotie under its own brand within 20 weeks, at shelf prices near R39.99 and R49.99 including VAT, with “source of protein”, “vegan” and a 10-day life. Amanzi’s reduced-sugar drink would cut the Health Promotion Levy by R1 791 890.10 a year, but only while a R60 000 accredited sugar analysis stays in the plan. Thuthuka Foods Group is a training scenario built from real patterns. You work each decision on the base case, then make it again on your own case variant in the practical.

Food Product Development (NPD) for Management: Funding, Gate and Launch Decisions. Course code FS144. Intermediate, Level 3. 4 hours online, self paced, on a phone or a laptop. R1 495, once off, no VAT charged.

Rated 4.9 out of 5 from more than 2 500 delegate reviews across ASC courses, with 6 700+ course enrolments. A course by the ASC Food Safety Consultants team.

Enrol for R1 495

Who it is for

• Managing directors, general managers and other directors who fund, approve or kill new product projects
• Finance and operations heads who read the costing, the business case and the launch plan before the money moves
• Commercial managers who take a brief from a retail buyer and deal with that buyer through to launch
• Marketing managers who write briefs, propose claims and range names, and run launches

The people who fund projects and the people who sell them learn together. In ASC’s audit experience much launch trouble starts in the brief, when a buyer asks for a claim, a life and a date in one meeting and someone says yes. Every lesson ends with a “Now do it for real” box in two versions, one for those who approve projects and one for those who work with the NPD team. You will not formulate a product, run sensory statistics or build a HACCP plan, because your NPD team does that. You learn to ask for the right evidence, read it and decide. Every activity runs on the Thuthuka Foods Group case, so you can finish the course without a project of your own.

What you walk away with

You finish with seven things you can use at your next gate meeting. You practise each on the case, then make the gate decision on your own case variant in the assessed practical.

1. A gate decision, Go, Kill, Hold or Recycle, with each open must-meet owned and dated and a note to the executive committee of 100 to 150 words
2. A portfolio read with the legal and food safety gates before any score, funded inside the budget, with money already spent kept out of the decision
3. A brief that fixes the shopper, the price, the volume and the date wanted, and holds every claim, the shelf life and the launch commitment for evidence
4. A cost stack you can read from ingredients to shelf price including VAT, with margin and mark-up told apart and the retailer’s margin checked
5. Three answers for every claim or promise a buyer or marketing asks for. Promise it, hold it for named evidence, or say it cannot be done
6. A launch and recall readiness check, with the post-launch reviews agreed before launch and the people a recall must reach, and by when
7. Five checks to run on any NPD memo, and a clear view of which ASC course each member of your team needs

The practical, a Gate Decision Sheet in three stages

Lesson 4.4 is the practical. In the Gate Decision Sheet you take the retailer’s plant-based range to its gate in your browser, on a case variant built for your account, so your figures, asks and open must-meets are your own.

1. Promise or hold. Six retailer asks drawn from a pool, one each on protein, “vegan”, the range name, “no preservatives”, the shelf life and the launch week. You mark each Promise with the record behind it, Hold for named evidence with an owner, or Cannot promise.
2. The money. Your own shelf price before and including VAT at 15 percent, the gap to the brief and the mark-up, worked from your variant’s supplier price and margins. In about a third of variants Amanzi’s levy business case is on the same agenda, and you decide whether its saving counts.
3. The decision. Each must-meet marked Met, Open or Failed, each open one given an owner, the closing evidence and a due date, then Go, Kill, Hold or Recycle and your note to the executive committee.

The working tool, and a free one to try first

The Gate Decision Sheet, in Lessons 4.3 and 4.4, runs the three stages in your browser. In practice mode, in Lesson 4.3, it takes the standard case or a project of your own, and nothing about your own project is sent to ASC. In assessment mode, in Lesson 4.4, it runs on your own case variant and ASC’s server marks each stage. On the base case the mince lands at R37.21 on shelf including VAT, R2.78 below the brief’s R39.99, and a score of 69.0 percent against 65 is still a Hold with three must-meets open. Export your copy to Excel at any time.

You can see the gate rule before you pay. Open the free Gate Review Scorecard, load the case study numbers and watch the retailer’s plant-based range score 69.0 percent against a threshold of 65 and still come out as Hold, because three must-meets are open. The third stage of the Gate Decision Sheet applies the same rule to this course’s Gate 2.

Methods in the lessons, and the certificate

In the course	What it does for you
Gates before scores, Lessons 1.2 and 1.3	Four decisions with money attached, Go, Kill, Hold and Recycle, and no Go with conditions. A legal gate and a food safety gate run before any score. On the case six projects are funded for R7 700 000 of R8 000 000, and TFM-2 and AMZ-2 are killed whatever their scores. The R650 000 already spent on TFM-2 stays out of the decision.
Margin or mark-up, Lesson 2.2	The cost stack from ingredients to shelf price. A 22 percent margin on the mince’s R22.00 supplier price is a 28.2 percent mark-up on its R17.16 cost, the same R4.84 a pack. The case’s 32 percent retailer margin is worked on the retailer’s own selling price before VAT, so the mince reaches R37.21 including VAT, R2.78 below the brief. ASC’s post How to cost and price a food product works the same sums for a small producer.
When the law moves the money, Lesson 2.3	The Health Promotion Levy is 2.21 cents per gram of sugar above the first 4 g per 100 ml. With accredited sugar reports Amanzi’s levy falls from 50.47 to 20.60 cents a 330 ml can, R1 791 890.10 a year on 6 000 000 cans. Without an accredited report a drink is deemed to hold 20 g per 100 ml and pays 116.69 cents a can. SARS sets no fixed retest interval, but its levy FAQ asks for a new test report whenever the ingredients, composition or recipe change. A soy 11.8 percent cheaper, saving R0.34 a pack, waits until the technical manager approves its supplier.
Claims marketing cannot buy, Lesson 3.1	“Healthy” is banned in brand and range names as well as on labels, and “natural” and its relatives are regulated. A preservative carried in by an ingredient must still be declared, and then “no preservatives” cannot be made. Otherwise it waits for every supplier’s written confirmation and the regulatory manager’s wording. A nutrient claim brings a nutrition table with laboratory values. The name “plant-based mince” and any protein claim are confirmed on factory product made at the top of the hydration specification. R.3337, the proposed replacement for R.146, is still a draft, and label law overrides the advertising code.
Shelf life and new hazards, Lesson 3.2	UK Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland guidance caps vacuum and MAP chilled foods stored at 3 to 8 °C at 10 days from first packing, unless a controlling factor holds throughout. It is guidance, not South African law. A study that covers non-proteolytic Clostridium botulinum treats it as a hazard of the pack, so the UK guidance’s 10-day ceiling applies, and its counts can come back shorter. Plan on 10 days at most, and print the life the signed report supports. More days mean a redesign or a validated combination of factors, which is a new project. A new allergen goes on the allergen register from the first bench sample, and its full assessment and HACCP approval come before the factory trial. ASC’s post The 10-day rule for chilled MAP foods covers the technical side.
What sets the launch date, Lesson 3.3	The 20-week plan is set by a MAP tray sealer with an 8-week lead time, so finishing the recipe early moves nothing. If the factory trial has to be repeated, a call made on the trial-day deviation record moves launch from week 20 to week 21, and waiting for the protein result in week 14 moves it to week 24. Product liability under section 61 of the Consumer Protection Act is strict, and joint and several, private label included.
Recall readiness, Lesson 4.2	Who hears of a recall and by when, from the retailer at once to the National Consumer Commission in writing within two days of starting, which ASC counts in calendar days. A recall notice never calls itself a “voluntary recall”. Then the trade mark search before artwork and the design filing within six months of release.
Reading the NPD memo, Lesson 4.3	Five checks, the decision asked, evidence with references and dates, open must-meets with owners, sunk cost left out, and a downside case. A memo that asks for “Go with conditions” goes back.
13 case tasks with model answers	One in every lesson, on the Thuthuka Foods Group case, with the working shown so you check your method and not only your answer. Each lesson’s “Now do it for real” box has a version for those who approve projects and one for those who work with the NPD team.
12 original diagrams	Among them the four doors of a gate, the scores against the gates, the brief in two columns, the mince price ladder, the levy on three cans, the 10-day gate, the critical path and the recall clock.
An ASC certificate	Your name, the course title, the code FS144 and the date of completion, with a QR code that an employer or auditor can scan to verify it.

Inside the course, 4 modules and 13 lessons

Module 1. What the board is buying

See what a board buys when it funds NPD, evidence and the option to stop, released one stage at a time. Quote launch failure with its scope. Victory and colleagues followed 83 719 new SKUs in 31 US consumer packaged goods categories from 2002 to 2009, and about a quarter had stopped selling within a year and about 40 percent within two (Marketing Letters, 2021). The popular 80 to 90 percent failure rate is not supported (Castellion and Markham, 2013). Chair a gate in a stage-gate process based on Robert G. Cooper’s Stage-Gate® model, with ASC’s food deliverables, and keep the gates when teams work in agile sprints. Then challenge a scored portfolio of twelve projects with the legal and food safety gates first, and answer a general manager who wants a project kept because money is already spent.

Module 2. Briefs and business cases

Write or approve a brief that starts from the shopper’s job to be done and fixes the price, the volume and the date wanted, while claims, shelf life and the launch commitment wait for evidence. Keep consumer tastings inside POPIA, with consent that is voluntary, specific and informed and recorded before any allergy, diet or religious question. Read the cost stack for the retailer’s plant-based mince and bobotie, tell a margin from a mark-up, and check how the retailer’s margin and VAT were applied. Then see where the law moves the money, from the Health Promotion Levy and its deemed 20 g of sugar per 100 ml to a cheaper soy supplier the technical manager has not approved.

Module 3. Safe and legal, the questions that stop a project

Give marketing and a buyer one of three answers for every claim or name, and know who signs each piece of evidence. See why a chilled vacuum or MAP life past 10 days with no controlling factor is a new project, and why air in a pack is no safeguard against non-proteolytic Clostridium botulinum. Learn who decides whether a shelf-life study covers it, why a new allergen goes on the allergen register from the first bench sample and is fully assessed before the factory trial, and why the technical director’s no on a safety or legal must-meet stands. Then read a critical path to find what sets launch week, and see why a private label leaves the factory liable under section 61 of the Consumer Protection Act.

Module 4. Launch, the first year and the decision

Run the Gate 4 launch readiness check and agree the launch measures and the post-launch reviews at 90 days, 6 months and 12 months before launch, so you can spot a product that fails while it still sells. Know who hears of a recall and by when, and protect a new product’s name, pack and recipe. Read an NPD memo for the decision asked, its evidence, its open must-meets and their owners, sunk cost and a downside case. Then the three-stage practical in the Gate Decision Sheet on your own case variant, and the final.

How you are assessed, and the certificate

• Two scored quizzes in every module. A Checkpoint draws 6 questions at random from 10, at 45 seconds each, including one-step calculations. A Knowledge Check later in the module draws 10 from 16, at 30 seconds each. 70 percent to pass and three attempts, with the questions drawn at random on every attempt.
• Four games, one in each module. “Go, kill, hold or recycle?”, “Margin or mark-up?”, “Can we promise the retailer this?” and “Who acts, and by when?”. Six quick decisions drawn from 10, at 45 seconds each, with 70 percent to pass and three attempts, like every other scored assessment.
• A three-stage online practical in the Gate Decision Sheet, on one case variant generated for your account, so your prices, margins, asks, must-meets and dates are your own. You enter your own figure or decision before the sheet shows its own, and the marks go to your entries. A figure passes within 1 percent of your variant’s key, or within half a unit of the last decimal place the field asks for where that is wider. Every choice must be exact, and “Go with conditions” is marked wrong. Filling every field earns at most 20 percent of a stage, and an evidence field needs a reference and a date. Each stage is marked the moment you submit, needs 70 percent, allows three attempts and opens the next stage. Progress is saved with your account, so you can start on a laptop at work and finish on a phone at home. Nothing is uploaded and nobody waits for a marker.
• Your own words in the stage 3 note. The note to the executive committee, 100 to 150 words, has to carry a rand figure that matches your own stage 2 figures, a date, a named role owning each open item, and every open flag in your variant. A note with no detail from your variant is checked for other signs that you did not write it. With two or more such signs it is returned unmarked under ASC’s rule on machine-written submissions, and the attempt is used. A second note returned this way locks the practical and ends the enrolment without a certificate and without a refund. A weak note in your own words is marked, and the feedback names what it missed and the lesson to revisit.
• A completion code. When all three stages show Passed, the sheet gives you a completion code. You paste it into the practical result assignment, which marks itself, before the final.
• A final assessment of 28 questions drawn at random from 56, across all four modules, at 30 seconds each. 70 percent to pass and three attempts, with the questions drawn at random on every attempt, video proctored, with copying blocked.
• Feedback that teaches. A failed attempt names the lesson to reread. After a third failed attempt on a quiz, a game, a practical stage or the final, a R250.00 reopening fee and a single-use unlock code apply.
• The certificate is issued once you have passed every Checkpoint, game and Knowledge Check, all three practical stages and the final, pasted your completion code into the practical result, and submitted your course review.

Four hours, and what R1 495 is measured against

The course is 13 lessons of 10 to 15 minutes, plus the quizzes, games, practical and final, 4 hours in all. It fits a module a week for four weeks beside a working week, on a phone or a laptop. Set R1 495 beside three decisions a board can get wrong.

• A project funded on its score. In the course case, TFM-2, a MAP chilled curry range on a 21-day life with no controlling factor, scores 74.0 and ranks fifth of twelve. Funded in score order, it takes R1 100 000 of the R8 000 000 budget, after R650 000 already spent on its line study. As briefed, the UK FSA and FSS guidance caps its life at 10 days from first packing. That guidance is not South African law, and shelf-life counts cannot support 21 days. The food safety gate stops it before the score is read. R1 100 000 is about 736 times the course fee.
• A margin worked as a mark-up. A planner told to earn a 22 percent margin adds 22 percent to the mince’s R17.16 cost, prices it at R20.94 instead of R22.00 and earns an 18.0 percent margin. That is R1.06 a pack, more than R3 000 a week at 3 000 packs, or more than twice the course fee every week.
• A R60 000 report cut to save money. Without an accredited sugar report Amanzi’s reformulated drink is deemed to hold 20 g of sugar per 100 ml and pays 116.69 cents a can in levy. On 6 000 000 cans that is R7 001 280.00 a year instead of R1 236 163.50, and the R1 791 890.10 saving disappears. Amanzi’s co-manufacturer declares and pays the levy, and it reaches Amanzi in the price. The analysis costs R0.01 a can.

Enrol for R1 495

What this course is not

This course teaches asking, reading and deciding, so the people who fund and sell new products can test the evidence their teams bring. Formulation, sensory testing, HACCP, shelf-life study design and label building belong to the other courses in the series. The course does not replace your technical director, your laboratory, a written legal opinion, your certification body or your supplier agreement. The ASC certificate does not approve a product, a claim, a label, a process or a site.

The NPD series, and which course each person in your team needs

Small brand owners and founders need Introduction to Food Product Development (NPD): From Recipe to Retail Shelf, 8 hours, R1 950. It takes a first product from a kitchen recipe to a legal, costed pack.

Factory NPD, QA and production staff need Intermediate Food Product Development (NPD): Running Projects in a Food Factory, 16 hours, R3 950. It runs the trials, shelf-life studies, allergen work, labels and gates whose evidence this course teaches you to read.

NPD heads and technical directors need Advanced Food Product Development (NPD): Strategy, Reformulation and Global Regulatory Routes, 24 hours, R6 500. It builds the portfolio scoring, the reformulation and the export cases you challenge here.

Directors, general managers and commercial teams need this course, so they can fund, hold or kill on evidence and promise a buyer only what the factory can prove.

Related ASC courses for the questions this one raises.

• Food Technology for Non-Technical Professionals for the food science behind the words your teams use
• Essentials of Food Labelling Claims for Food Manufacturing for the people who write your claims
• Overview of Conducting a Shelf-Life Study for the people who design your shelf-life studies
• Allergen Labelling and Artwork Control for the people who approve your artwork
• Food Safety and Quality Culture for Management and Supervisors for leaders who want problems raised early
• BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 for Management for senior managers on a site certificated to BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9

Buying for a team

If you are training an executive committee, a commercial and marketing team or the managers who sit on your gate reviews, ASC enrols teams in bulk, invoices the company and gives the manager a dashboard to track completion. To train the people who decide and the people who do the work together, pair this course with the Intermediate course for your NPD, QA and production staff. Get a team quote, or WhatsApp ASC on +27 61 483 0381.

For the full route your product developers follow, from food science to allergen labelling, see the product developer courses pathway.

Questions people ask before they enrol

Who should take an NPD course for management?

Managing directors, general managers and other directors who fund, approve or kill new product projects, finance and operations heads, and the commercial and marketing managers who write briefs, deal with retail buyers and run launches. It is written for people who decide about new food products rather than develop them. The course is 4 hours online, self paced, and costs R1 495.

Do I need a technical background or a project of my own?

No. There is no prerequisite, and the course hands you each technical result from the case and teaches the question to ask about it. Every lesson activity and the assessed practical run on a provided case, Thuthuka Foods Group, a training scenario with chilled ready meals, still drinks and processed meat businesses. If you have a real project, practice mode in the Gate Decision Sheet takes your own figures, and nothing about your project is sent to ASC.

Will it work in my business?

For the method, yes. The gate decisions, the brief in two columns, the cost stack, the three answers to a claim, the critical path, the recall duties and the memo checks apply to any business that develops food or drink products. That holds whether it makes them itself or uses a co-manufacturer. Every lesson ends with a task for those who approve projects and one for those who work with the NPD team. Some rules belong to certain products. The UK 10-day guidance covers chilled vacuum and MAP packs, and the levy applies to the drinks listed in Part 7A of Schedule No. 1 to the Customs and Excise Act. The South African law in the course, from R.146 to the Consumer Protection Act, applies to products sold in South Africa.

How often do new food products fail?

Less often than board papers claim. Victory and colleagues followed 83 719 new SKUs in 31 US consumer packaged goods categories from 2002 to 2009. About a quarter had stopped selling within a year and about 40 percent within two, counting a product as failed only when its sales stopped completely (Marketing Letters, 2021). The popular 80 to 90 percent failure rate is not supported (Castellion and Markham, 2013). A product can still fail while it sells, below its planned volume or at a margin eaten by waste, so Lesson 4.1 sets the first-year reviews before launch.

What are the four decisions at a stage-gate review, and why is there no “Go with conditions”?

A stage-gate review decides money, and it has four answers. Go releases the next stage’s money only. Kill stops spending. Hold spends only on closing named conditions, each with an owner and a date. Recycle sends the stage’s own work back with a named change. “Go with conditions” spends like a Go and decides like a Hold, so the open item turns up at launch. If a must-meet is open, the answer is Hold, whatever the score. In the course case the retailer’s plant-based range scores 69.0 percent against 65 at Gate 2 and is still held, because three must-meets are open. Each closes inside the Hold with small, named work, due on Tuesday 8 December 2026. Lesson 1.2 works it through.

When should a board kill a new product project, and does money already spent count?

Kill it when it fails a legal or food safety gate, when a must-meet cannot be met at any realistic cost, or when the money will do more elsewhere. Money already spent is a sunk cost. It is gone whichever way the board decides, so the decision rests only on the money still to spend and what it can earn. In the course case TFM-2 asks for R1 100 000 more after R650 000 spent, scores 74.0 and ranks fifth of twelve. The food safety gate kills it before its score is read. Lessons 1.2 and 1.3 work it through.

What is the difference between margin and mark-up on a food product?

Both describe the same profit on a different base. Margin is profit as a share of the selling price, and mark-up is profit as a share of the cost. In the course case the mince costs R17.16 a pack sold and sells to the retailer at R22.00, so its R4.84 profit is a 22 percent margin and a 28.2 percent mark-up. To price from a margin, divide the cost by 1 minus the margin. Someone who adds 22 percent to the cost instead prices the mince at R20.94 and earns an 18.0 percent margin. A retailer’s margin is worked on its own selling price before VAT, and VAT at 15 percent goes on top. Lesson 2.2 works it through.

What can a supplier promise a retail buyer about a new food product?

Every ask gets one of three answers. Promise it with the record behind it, hold it for named evidence with an owner and a date, or say it cannot be done. The brief fixes the shopper, the price, the volume and the date wanted, and holds claims, shelf life and the launch commitment for evidence. In the course case the buyer’s “source of protein” and “vegan” are held for evidence, and marketing’s range name “Healthy Thuthuka Kitchen” cannot be done. The name “plant-based mince” needs at least 9 percent protein as analysed, confirmed on factory product made at the top of the hydration specification before the artwork is signed. Lessons 2.1 and 3.1 work it through.

Can a food brand or range name use the word “healthy” in South Africa?

No. R.146 bans “health”, “healthy”, “wholesome” and “nutritious” on labels and in adverts, and the ban reaches brand and trade names. An advert may not carry a claim the label may not, so an agency that clears the word against the Advertising Regulatory Board’s Code has not made it lawful. Words such as “natural”, “fresh”, “pure” and “traditional” are regulated and come with conditions. In the course case marketing’s range name “Healthy Thuthuka Kitchen” fails before the first pack is printed. Lesson 3.1 works it through, with the evidence and the signatory for each claim a buyer asks for.

Can a retailer get a longer chilled shelf life if we test more batches?

No, not by testing more batches. UK Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland guidance (Revision 4, December 2020) caps vacuum and MAP chilled foods stored at 3 to 8 °C at 10 days from first packing. The exception is a controlling factor that holds throughout every component, such as pH 5.0 or less, water activity 0.97 or less, or at least 3.5 percent salt in the water phase. It is guidance, not South African law, and it is widely used as good practice. Shelf-life counts and batch tests cannot show that non-proteolytic Clostridium botulinum is controlled, so they cannot support a longer life. More days need a redesign with a controlling factor, or a combination of factors validated for the product. That validation is a challenge test with non-proteolytic C. botulinum, with toxin testing, run and interpreted by a centre of expertise. It is a new project with its own brief and budget. Lesson 3.2 works it through.

Who must be told of a food recall in South Africa, and by when?

Tell the retailer at once, through the recall contact in the supply agreement. Report the recall to the local inspector and the National Directorate: Food Control, as R.638 regulation 10(18) requires for any incident that calls for one. That regulation sets no deadline, and ASC reports the same day. Notify the National Consumer Commission in writing within two days of starting the recall, preferably before, under its Consumer Product Safety Recall Guidelines (GN 490 of 2012). The guidelines do not say how the days are counted, so ASC counts every calendar day, weekends included. FSSC 22000 Versions 6 and 7 both give the certification body three working days from the start of a public recall or withdrawal, and ASC tells it the same day. A recall notice never calls itself a “voluntary recall”. Lesson 4.2 works it through.

How is the course assessed, and what happens if I fail?

Each module has two scored quizzes, a Checkpoint and a Knowledge Check, plus a game. The course ends with a three-stage online practical on your own case variant and a final assessment of 28 questions. Quizzes, games, practical stages and the final all need 70 percent, with three attempts each. The questions in every quiz, every game and the final are drawn at random from a larger bank on every attempt, and the practical runs on the one case variant made for your account. Everything is marked automatically, and feedback on a failed attempt names the lesson to reread. After a third failed attempt a R250.00 reopening fee and a single-use unlock code apply. A decision note with nothing from your own case and two or more other signs that you did not write it is returned unmarked under ASC’s rule on machine-written submissions, and the attempt is used. A second note returned this way locks the practical and ends the enrolment without a certificate and without a refund.

Is the course accredited, and does the certificate approve my product?

It is a non-credit-bearing short course. You receive a QR-verified ASC certificate with your name, the course title, the code FS144 and the date, which your employer can use in its competence records and an auditor can check online. It is issued once you have passed every assessment, pasted your practical completion code and submitted your course review. It shows that you completed and passed this course. It does not approve a product, a claim, a label, a process or a site.

Enrol

R1 495, once off, no VAT charged. 4 hours, on your phone, at your own pace. You finish knowing what to ask at each gate, what a brief may promise a buyer, and what to do with a memo that leans on money already spent.

Your learner account is created from the order, and the course opens once payment clears.

Enrol for R1 495