This might be my most embarrassing inquiry to date.
We make RTE snack bars and bites that are extruded. We have some recipes which include cocoa powder and chocolate chips and most recipes include nuts and/or nut butter. In the case of our bites, we do toast the chopped nuts or coconut flakes used as coating on the bites for aesthetic purposes only; sometimes, we chop the nuts used for coating but are trying to move toward buying them both pre-chopped and pre-toasted.
I had read through the FSCs in SQF 7.2 (we're going for L2 certification) and concluded that FSC 13, Bakery and Snack Food Processing, applied to us most closely. As I started calling around to CBs to compare pricing and service, I had a couple people make the determination for me. One said we belong to FSC 17, Confectionery, and FSC 22, Processing of Cereal Grains and Nuts and another go with FSC 13 only.
I re-read the FSCs and discussed with another HACCP/SQF team member and we agreed that FSC 22 could apply to us because we presently do chop some of the nuts and toast all of those we are using for coating our bites. But neither of us could figure out how someone would get to FSC 17 for confectionery. The word, by definition, is sweets and candy and we produce neither of those items. While we do use cocoa and chocolate chips in our recipes, we do not process them in any way - there is no baking or other heat treatment or cold storage; all of our raw ingredients and our finished product are able to be stored at ambient temperature.
Based on the information I've provided, do any of you experts see that I'm missing anything or are we on the right track that 13 and 22 are appropriate for us?
Lastly, other than what modules of SQF are required, how does belonging to these FSCs really affect us? If we're following the code for each module, we're good to go, right?
As always, thank you guys!
~Emily~
PS. My SQF Practitioner training is coming up so hopefully I'll be able to bug you guys less with these types of questions!