About
We do one thing: global trade in food.
A specialist advisory for food & drink crossing borders — customs, labelling, in-market compliance, export development and NPD.
Who we are
The food-trade specialists
Falsum is a specialist advisory for food and drink crossing borders. We do one thing — global trade in food — and we go deep: customs, labelling, in-market compliance, export development and new product development.
Food is the most controlled, most time-sensitive thing you can move across a border. Most advisers treat it as a sideline of general customs work. We don't. It's the whole business, which is why our advice is specific to your product, your route and your market — not a generic template with the word 'food' pasted in.
We've also been on the other side of it. Our founder advised the UK Cabinet Office on border strategy at McKinsey — the Border 2025 and Border 2030 programmes, targeted SPS planning and future-borders design — and led DEFRA's day-one border model across 3,700 agri-food commodities. We don't just know what the rules say; we know why they were written that way.
So we translate legislation into business practice: real-world recommendations, in plain English, with honest scoping — we tell you what you actually need, and what you don't. And when something is live and time-critical, an SLA-backed Helpdesk gives you somewhere to raise it.
The founder
Meet the founder
Sam Ballard-Robinson is the founder and lead adviser at Falsum, the hyperspecialist advisory for global trade in food. At McKinsey he advised the UK Cabinet Office on border strategy — the Border 2025 and Border 2030 programmes, targeted SPS planning and future-borders design — and on public-sector border and customs reform across West Africa and the Gulf. Before that he was DEFRA's technical lead for the Brexit 'day-one' border model across 3,700 high-risk agricultural commodities, and advised on customs and global trade at Deloitte. A trade-policy economist by training (LSE), he leads Falsum's work across customs, labelling, in-market compliance, export development and NPD — the pre-notifications, certificates and border steps that decide whether food or drink clears the border and reaches the shelf.
How we work
What you can expect
Food, only
Domain and category specialists — years of hands-on experience in food and drink specifically, not general customs with 'food' bolted on.
Legislation, translated
We turn dense customs, SPS and labelling law into business practice — real-world recommendations you can act on, not a wall of statute.
Border to shelf
Sourcing and production, across the border, through to in-market compliance — the whole journey, in every market.
Customs Helpdesk
SLA-backed online Helpdesk for the live, time-critical issues when a consignment is on the move.