15 replies to this topic

[Chad R.]

Hello,

 

I am in the flexible packaging industry and am wondering which standard is considered the best or preferred, AIB or SQF?  My organization is currently AIB certified and looking to go into SQF but the question was asked to me, which is a better certification to have.  I see AIB as more facility cleanliness and GMP practices followed vs SQF which is more procedural and documentation.  In my opinion both serve different purposes.

 

Thoughts or preferences?

 

Thanks

Chad

[ctzinck]

Chad, I'm also in flexible packaging, we were previously AIB but are now SQF level 2, we went with SQF because our customers were requiring it of us, but I still will use AIB instructors to come in and handle some training for us.

[ncorliss]

I am in the food packaging industry, direct food contact. I haven't worked with AIB so I can't comment. I'm not sure what you mean about SQF being more procedural and documentation vs. cleanliness and GMP practices. SQF also requires appropriate cleanliness and GMP. Both schemes are GFSI recognized. I guess it comes down to what your customer's want. Some of us require to be specifically SQF certified, others only require a GFSI recognized standard.  

[Chad R.]

Ctzinck,

 

Did you use AIB as your certified body for inspections?  As of right now none of our customers has asked for SQF certification hence why we still maintain AIB but senior management has some concerns since AIB is not listed as an acceptable certification for FSMA.

 

I am at the very initial stages of looking for quote for someone to conduct a Gap Analysis or pre-assessment to see how far we are at satisfying the code and some of the quotes were pretty high so the owner asked if we should pursue at this point or not.

[ncorliss]

Chad R.

 

I hadn't seen any published lists of accepted third party certifications under FSMA, can you share where you found this? Google wasn't helpful to me today.

[Chad R.]

I am in the food packaging industry, direct food contact. I haven't worked with AIB so I can't comment. I'm not sure what you mean about SQF being more procedural and documentation vs. cleanliness and GMP practices. SQF also requires appropriate cleanliness and GMP. Both schemes are GFSI recognized. I guess it comes down to what your customer's want. Some of us require to be specifically SQF certified, others only require a GFSI recognized standard.  

I thought AIB was not recognized as GFSI?

[Chad R.]

Chad R.

 

I hadn't seen any published lists of accepted third party certifications under FSMA, can you share where you found this? Google wasn't helpful to me today.

here is a link i found today. 

 

http://www.mygfsi.co...ed-schemes.html

[ncorliss]

Ah, you are right. I even looked and got my acronyms cross today. My bad.

[ctzinck]

Ctzinck,

 

Did you use AIB as your certified body for inspections?  As of right now none of our customers has asked for SQF certification hence why we still maintain AIB but senior management has some concerns since AIB is not listed as an acceptable certification for FSMA.

 

I am at the very initial stages of looking for quote for someone to conduct a Gap Analysis or pre-assessment to see how far we are at satisfying the code and some of the quotes were pretty high so the owner asked if we should pursue at this point or not.

 

Yes, back when we were AIB certified we were inspected yearly by AIB, once we went SQF AIB no longer audited us, once we started the process of going SQF we brought in a consultant to help and they come back every year the month before we are audited. They conduct a mock audit to see if theres any areas that need attention before the actual audit. 

[Robert Daigneault]

We used AIB GMP for Direct Food Contact for years and are currently implementing BRC Pack 5.  Many of our customer are requiring a GFSI scheme for higher levels of risk management.  I would recommend surveying your customer's needs before making the decision,

[CMHeywood]

Depending on your customer, AIB inspection may not be acceptable.  I am not talking about using AIB as a certification body for SQF, etc.

 

A few years ago, the Peanut Corporation of American has a high AIB score but then had a severe problem with salmonella in their products that went to Mars, Kraft, and a whole host of large food companies.  The recall cost millions of dollars and three of the PCA managers went to jail.

 

I think the document you get after your AIB inspection says "not certification".

 

I work for a company that makes food contact packaging.  We are SQF Level 3 certified which replaced AIB (cleanliness) and ISO 9001 (quality).

[Ryan M.]

SQF is a preferred certification over AIB.

[Charles.C]

Dear All,

 

It would be interesting to see how many annual recalls/disasters are from "GFSI certified" facilities, etc.

 

I extracted this from a, probably, ca 2009 review -

 

It is important to clarify the difference between the AIB physical inspection and GFSI recognized audits performed by AIB.  While GFSI recognized audits include a very focused review of documentation, the AIB physical inspection focuses on the manufacturing facility, it’s policies, operations, the physical condition of grounds, buildings, production and the storage areas in order to make certain that in every step of the process the food remains safe.  The AIB audit does not “certify” a company, it gives the manufacturer a certificate of achievement which is based on the inspection that was performed on that day.  The certificate of achievement does not have an expiration date.

 

As above, it will depend on yr customer requirements plus yr own "ambitions/resources/etc".

 

Maybe off-topic but here is one food users perspective -

 

http://www.ifsqn.com...ng-overwhelmed/

[SQFconsultant]

If your customers want your company to be GFSI certified then SQF is a logical choose as AIB is not currently recognized by GFSI. For a full list of recognized GFSI schemes take a look at...

http://www.mygfsi.co...ed-schemes.html

[ctzinck]

Depending on your customer, AIB inspection may not be acceptable.  I am not talking about using AIB as a certification body for SQF, etc.

 

A few years ago, the Peanut Corporation of American has a high AIB score but then had a severe problem with salmonella in their products that went to Mars, Kraft, and a whole host of large food companies.  The recall cost millions of dollars and three of the PCA managers went to jail.

 

I think the document you get after your AIB inspection says "not certification".

 

I work for a company that makes food contact packaging.  We are SQF Level 3 certified which replaced AIB (cleanliness) and ISO 9001 (quality).

 

Just out of curiosity, why lvl 3 and not 2?

[CMHeywood]

SQF Level 3 is food safety program and quality program certification.  SQF Level 2 is food safety only.

 

We previously were AIB and ISO 9001 certified so two different audits.  We decided to go SQF Level 3 to replace AIB and ISO 9001 so we would only have one audit.

 

There was also a mistaken belief by some of our management that SQF Level 3 is better than Level 2.  Level 3 adds quality but does not really add more to the food safety requirements found in Level 2.

 

Level 3 is a hybrid set of requirements - a mixture of food safety and quality.  Only Level 2 is GFSI benchmarked.  The understanding is that Level 3 means you meet the requirements of Level 2 (food safety) plus quality.