About
Suru means start. Compliance has to start somewhere honest.
SURU Compliance is an independent regulatory and compliance consulting practice. We help businesses bring products into the United States and operate inside its rules — from restaurants, manufacturers and supplement makers to importers, distributors and international suppliers entering the U.S. market.
- Practice areas
- 9 categories
- Service lines
- 96 listed services
- Industries served
- 14 segments
The name
Suru — start, beginning.
The word carries the whole idea. Almost every compliance failure we are called into began as a decision made at the start: a formulation chosen without checking its regulatory pathway, a co-packer selected on price, a template plan adopted because it was available.
Compliance is not a document you buy once. It is a loop: you start, you protect, you verify, you improve, and you comply — then you run it again when the process, the product, the supplier or the regulation changes.
Our brand mark encodes it literally. An amber origin dot where compliance begins, a three-quarter lifecycle ring around it, and an ascending check that starts at the origin and rises out through the gap — because a working system keeps improving rather than arriving at a finish line.
Start Right. Stay Compliant.
Where the loop runs
Every phase is verified against the operation as it actually runs, not as the binder describes it.
Start
Understand the operation, the products, and the regulatory pathways that actually apply before writing a single procedure.
Protect
Build the preventive controls, sanitation, allergen and supplier programs that keep hazards from reaching a consumer.
Verify
Audit, monitor and test the system against the standard — internally, before a regulator or certification body does.
Improve
Close findings at the root cause, retrain, and update the program so the same finding does not return next cycle.
Comply
Maintain records, readiness and documentation so an inspection or audit is a routine event rather than an emergency.
What we cover
One practice, four bodies of work.
Most engagements draw on more than one of these, because the requirements do. An importer with an organic line is under FSVP, the National Organic Program and its retail customer's supplier standard at the same time, and those cannot sensibly be built by three different people.
FDA and regulatory compliance
The federal requirements that decide whether product can be made, imported and sold — established for your products before anything is written.
- FDA compliance
- FSMA implementation
- FDA inspection readiness
- FDA Form 483 response support
- Preventive controls and PCQI support
- Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP)
- Food safety plans
- Regulatory applicability assessments
Food safety and quality systems
The operating programs behind the plan. A food safety plan without sanitation behind it and records in front of it is a document, not a control.
- HACCP plan development
- Seafood HACCP
- GMP and cGMP programs
- Sanitation programs
- Allergen management
- Environmental monitoring
- Quality assurance systems
- CAPA programs
- Recall programs
- Traceability programs
Certification and organic readiness
We prepare the operation and the evidence. The certification decision belongs to the accredited certification body, and USDA organic certification to a USDA-accredited certifying agent.
- Readiness for GFSI-benchmarked schemes
- SQF certification readiness
- BRCGS certification readiness
- Organic certification readiness
- USDA organic compliance support
- Organic program development
- Organic documentation and recordkeeping
- Organic supplier verification
- Organic audit preparation
- Internal auditing and internal audit programs
Import, retail and manufacturing
The same discipline applied to the roles a business actually holds — importer, distributor, warehouse, retailer, manufacturer — and the work of getting the system running.
- U.S. import compliance
- Importer and distributor compliance
- Warehouse and 3PL compliance
- Retail food safety programs
- Manufacturing compliance
- Supplier approval and verification programs
- SOP development
- Policy development
- Training and implementation support
Readiness work prepares an operation and its evidence. Certification decisions are made by an accredited certification body, and USDA organic certification by a USDA-accredited certifying agent. SURU Compliance does not certify, and does not issue certificates or credentials of its own.
How we work
We build systems that work in the real world.
From FDA and FSMA compliance to GMP, readiness for GFSI-benchmarked schemes, organic certification readiness, supplier programs, quality assurance systems and U.S. import compliance, SURU Compliance helps organizations build practical systems their own people can run.We assess the operation, identify the regulatory and certification requirements that apply, develop the programs, write the documentation, train the team and help implement the system.
Assess
Walk the operation, the products and the records as they actually are.
Identify gaps
Establish which regulatory and certification requirements apply, and where you fall short of them.
Build
Develop the programs and write the documentation against your process, not a template.
Train
Teach the people who will run the system why it is built the way it is.
Implement
Put the program into daily use and work through what the floor pushes back on.
Verify
Audit the system against the standard before a regulator or an auditor does.
Approach
Six principles we will not trade away.
These are not aspirations. They are the constraints we work inside, and they occasionally cost us work — usually when a prospective client wants a certificate faster than a system can honestly be built.
Applicability before activity
We establish in writing which requirements apply to your products, processes, volume and jurisdiction before proposing work. Ruling a requirement out is as valuable as building for one, and considerably cheaper.
The plant is the source document
Plans are written against a verified process flow, with your equipment names and your terminology. A program adapted from a template describes a facility that does not exist, and it fails at the first serious question.
Findings ranked by consequence
We do not pad reports with cosmetic observations to justify a fee. Findings are ordered by food safety significance and regulatory exposure, so you can act on the top of the list first.
Calibrated, comparable data
Where we run multi-site audit programs, we calibrate instruments and auditors so a score in one market means the same as the same score in another. Uncalibrated audit data cannot support a decision.
Capability transfer, not dependency
The objective is a client who can run their own system. We train internal PCQIs and internal auditors, and we write procedures your team can maintain without us.
Explicit about limits
We say clearly when a question belongs with a process authority, a certification body, a laboratory, or a lawyer. Guessing outside our scope would be the most expensive service we could sell.
Who we work with
From one location to a national system.
Engagement size is not a filter. A single restaurant preparing for a re-inspection and a multi-plant manufacturer facing a certification deadline both get a scoped plan with the same standard of evidence behind it.
- Independent restaurants, multi-unit groups and franchise systems
- Grocery retail, convenience retail and prepared-foods programs
- Sushi and seafood operations, from retail programs to Part 123 processors
- Food and beverage manufacturers, co-manufacturers and commissaries
- Dietary supplement manufacturers, packagers, labelers and brand owners
- Importers, U.S. agents, distributors, wholesalers and 3PL warehouses
- Startups, small food businesses and private label brands
- Contract foodservice, healthcare, education and catering operations
Positioning
One practice, four audiences, one standard of evidence.
Food businesses are reviewed by people with different mandates: an FDA investigator, a local health inspector, a certification body auditor, and a retail customer's supplier team. They all ultimately test the same thing — whether your system does what your documents claim.
Regulatory and audit readiness
We build to the requirement that will actually be applied to you — the CFR part that governs your products, the food code edition your jurisdiction adopted, the specific issue of the certification standard you will be audited against. Generic readiness is not readiness.
Inspection intelligence
Alongside the consulting practice we are building a national index of public health inspection records, so operators, brands and consumers can find and read them in one place. Records come from official publications, with source and retrieval date attached.
Go deeper
The pages behind the work.
Each of these covers one part of the practice in operational detail — the methodology, the regulatory basis and how an engagement is structured.
Food safety consulting
Food safety plans, HACCP, GMP, sanitation, allergen control and the programs that hold them together.
Food safety consultingU.S. import compliance
Bringing product into the United States: importer obligations, FSVP, entry documentation and the roles nobody realised they had taken on.
Import complianceManufacturing
One program that answers FDA, your customers' supplier requirements and a certification body audit.
ManufacturingRetail and groceries
Retail food safety programs, health department inspection readiness and prepared-foods operations.
Retail and groceriesTraining
HACCP, Seafood HACCP, FSVP, preventive controls, allergens, internal auditing and inspection readiness — taught against your own documentation.
Training and workshopsAll services
The full service inventory, organised by practice area, with the regulatory basis for each one.
Browse services
Scope & disclosures
What we are, stated plainly.
This section exists because the food compliance market contains firms that blur these lines. We would rather lose an enquiry than let a client believe we can deliver something we cannot.
SURU Compliance is an independent regulatory consulting and compliance support practice.
SURU Compliance is not the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, USDA, or any state or local health department, and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any government agency.
SURU Compliance is not a certification body and is not an accredited certifying entity. Certification decisions are made solely by the accredited certification body and its auditors.
SURU Compliance is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice or legal representation. Legal matters are referred to qualified counsel.
SURU Compliance does not issue, obtain, or expedite FDA approval, and cannot guarantee inspection outcomes, audit scores, certification results, or regulatory findings.
What we do deliver
- Written applicability and gap assessments against the rules that govern you
- Food safety plans, HACCP plans, specifications, SOPs and program documentation
- Independent audits, mock inspections and pre-assessment audits
- Technical assistance with regulatory correspondence and corrective action plans
- Training, internal auditor development and capability transfer
- Supplier, co-manufacturer and foreign supplier verification programs
What we will refer elsewhere
- Legal advice, representation and enforcement strategy — qualified counsel
- Certification decisions and accredited audits — an accredited certification body
- Scheduled processes and process authority letters — a recognised process authority
- Analytical testing — an accredited laboratory
- Credential examinations (CFPM and similar) — the accredited certificate program
Nothing on this website creates a consulting relationship, and nothing here is legal advice. Regulatory applicability depends on your specific products, processes, size and jurisdiction. Engagement scope, deliverables and limitations are agreed in writing before work begins.
Start right
A first conversation costs you a description of the problem.
Tell us what you operate, what is coming, and what you have already tried. We will tell you what applies, what does not, and whether we are the right people for it.
Direct contact
- info@surucompliance.com
- 651-329-4787
- Serving food businesses nationwide, onsite and remotely.
SURU Compliance is a regulatory consulting practice. We are not a government agency, a certification body, or a law firm, and we do not provide legal advice or guarantee regulatory outcomes.