7 replies to this topic

[ljfidds]

Hello

 

Has anybody dropped ISO9001:2008 and just used BRC (issue 5 food packaging)

 

I currently have both ISO & BRC standards, there seems to be so much cross over and none of my customers ever request the ISO certificate I am beginning to wonder if I need it?

 

Any feed back would be most welcome.

 

 

 

 

[Batchoy]

It is currently an ongoing internal discussion, but the general consensus seems to be that there is a divergence between the directions ISO 9001:2015 and BRC Global Packaging Issue 5 and their requirements and since, as you are seeing, we get few if any requests for our ISO certificate, even from our non-food related customers, we are going to run our current ISO 9001:2008 accreditation to its end and not migrate to ISO 9001:2015  

[Charles.C]

I would have thought it depended on whether you need a Standard which Focuses on Safety or not.

 

Unless the Packaging Standard is, like the Food, targetted at Safety +  Due Diligence (sort of 1.5 GFSI ?)

[ljfidds]

Thank you Batchboy

I am feeling more confident with my decision of not renewing the ISO standard

[Simon]

If you supply non-food packaging as well then those customers may not recognise BRC, they may not have heard of it. 

 

If you are pretty much 100% food packaging then in my experience you can safely drop it from a certification point of view.  That said if you export then maybe some of your overseas customers may not have heard about BRC, although this is getting less and less as GFSI standards are adopted more globally.

 

Many companies keep their ISO systems in place, but just stop the external audit.

 

If you drop ISO certification you will also not need to spend the time and effort upgrading to ISO 9001: 2015.

 

You should know your markets and customers best.

 

Regards,

Simon

[GMO]

At one (food) site in the early days of 3rd party auditing, we dropped ISO as Simon suggests but kept the same system and still audited internally to it.

 

For food manufacturers, ISO is a "nice to have" but a bit of a pain when it comes to approval because there are key aspects covered by things like BRC which aren't in the ISO standards so you always need more than ISO or you need to audit the supplier if that's what they have.  So personally I would be perfectly happy seeing a BRC certificate and audit report but not having any other standards in place.

[CMHeywood]

SQF Level 2 is food safety.  SQF Level 3 adds quality.  This is why SQF is sometimes called a hybrid program.  Only SQF Level 2 is GFSI benchmarked.

 

The plant where I work is SQF Level 3 certified.  We dropped our AIB and ISO 9000 certification.  No complaints from customers yet.

[Hazira]

Hi there,

 

My company dropped our HACCP certification and just using BRC for our Food Safety. However we still implement the HACCP principles.

I agree with Simon that you should know your customer and market best.