Miracle Brews / Petit Miracles
Pre-opening compliance, operations manuals, and accessible staff documentation for a social enterprise coffee initiative resulted in a 5-star Food Hygiene Rating from the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.
The Client
Petit Miracles is a charity based in Shepherd's Bush, West London. It upcycles furniture and sells it from a store, using the profits to fund training and employment opportunities for people with disabilities, minority groups, and the long-term unemployed — primarily people with special needs.
To raise additional funds and create new employment opportunities, Elicisia, the founding trustee, wanted to launch Miracle Brews: a coffee cart operation, staffed by members of the Petit Miracles community. The inaugural barista was a neurodiverse, dyslexic employee for whom standard compliance documentation would have been inaccessible and, in practice, unusable.
The Brief
Elicisia needed everything required to open and operate a food business legally and safely in London: a full pre-opening risk assessment, a comprehensive HACCP plan, health and safety documentation, operations manuals, and staff training materials.
The challenge was not simply producing documentation that would satisfy the regulatory authorities – the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and the Food Standards Agency – but also producing documentation that her employees could genuinely read, understand, and use independently. For a team that includes neurodiverse individuals and people with dyslexia, standard compliance paperwork is often a barrier rather than a tool. The goal was to remove that barrier without compromising the rigour of the content.
The Approach
The first decision was regulatory strategy. Where the requirements of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and the Food Standards Agency diverged, we deferred to the more stringent of the two on each point. This ensured that the documentation would satisfy both authorities without requiring two separate sets of records, simplifying the operation for the team while maximising compliance.
Once Elicisia agreed on the content, we shifted our focus to accessibility. Every document was designed from the ground up to work for the people who would be using it daily:
Typography and layout:
Larger font sizes, increased line spacing, and a grey background rather than white are a combination that significantly reduces visual stress for readers with dyslexia. No use of all-caps anywhere in the documents.
Colour and visual design:
Minimal, purposeful use of colour complements the text rather than decorates it. Excessive colour is distracting for neurodiverse readers; every visual element was included because it added clarity, not because it filled space.
Pictograms:
Key processes were supported with clear pictograms so that information could be understood visually as well as through text.
Process structure:
Every procedure was laid out in clear, numbered steps with explicit answers to six questions: Who is responsible. What needs to happen. Where it takes place. When it should be done. Why it matters. How to do it correctly.
The result was documentation that met the full requirements of both regulatory authorities and that any member of the Miracle Brews team could follow with minimal explanation.
The Outcome
When the council inspector from the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham arrived to conduct the food hygiene inspection, Elicisia was not present.
Her barista was. Alone.
He was able to confidently answer every question the inspector asked, walk through all the paperwork and records, and demonstrate that every required standard was being followed — not because he had been coached for the inspection, but because the systems had been built to be genuinely usable by him from the first day of trading.
Miracle Brews achieved a full 5-star Food Hygiene Rating.
Client Testimonial
"Working with Ben Sawyer was an excellent experience. As a hospitality consultant, Ben supported our social enterprise coffee initiative, Miracle Brews, by developing a comprehensive Health & Safety manual and a full HACCP plan for the project. His expertise and guidance ensured that our operational systems met the highest professional standards.
Miracle Brews creates supported employment opportunities for people with disabilities, so it was incredibly important that our food safety procedures were both robust and accessible for an inclusive workplace. Ben approached this with great care, designing the manual to be clear, practical, and dyslexia-friendly, ensuring it could be easily understood and used by a diverse team.
His professionalism and ability to translate complex compliance requirements into an accessible format made the entire process smooth and effective. Thanks to Ben's work, Miracle Brews achieved a 5-star Food Hygiene Rating, which was a major milestone for the project.
I would highly recommend Ben to any hospitality business or social enterprise looking for expert support in food safety, compliance, and operational systems."
— Elicisia, Founding Trustee, Petit Miracle
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