Tony-C's Blog

With the recent release of the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements GFSI Guidance Document Version 7 I thought it would be a good time to follow up on one of my previous blogs – GFSI Chicken or BRC Egg…which came first?  So, what are the changes? The previous GFSI Benchmarking Requirements GFSI Guidance Document Sixth Edition Version 6.4 was a single docu...

In November 2014, the 46th committee session agreed to establish an EWG led by France and Thailand, to review the General Principles of Food Hygiene (GPFH) including the Annex on HACCP and identify any need for updating and review. The CODEX COMMITTEE ON FOOD HYGIENE 47th Session takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America on 9 -...

This month marks the 15th anniversary of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) which was launched in May 2000. According to Wikipedia : “The Global Food Safety Initiative is a business driven initiative for the continuous improvement of food safety management systems to ensure confidence in the delivery of safe food to consumers worldwide. GFSI pr...

I want to start this month's blog by telling you a short story about a Technical role I was approached about a few years back. The offer was quite tempting and it was a similar role to the one I was in so shouldn’t have been too challenging (I thought to myself). I asked for more details regarding the role and I received a detailed job description. As I r...

This subject of validation and verification is right up there in the list of food safety areas which cause the most confusion among members and the variety and often conflicting definitions and requirements in food safety certification standards as to what should be validated, what should be verified and what should be done to meet the criteria for valida...

Last month FSSC 22000 announced its intention to add a module for the certification of Food Quality Management Systems based on ISO 9001. Certification should be available in the New Year.

In the announcement FSSC 22000 stated:

‘The addition will give organizations the possibility to be FSSC 22000 audited and certified for Food Safety and Quality Manag...

I’d like to start off my latest blog by quoting an interesting section in SQF Guidance regarding complaints: ‘Customer complaints provide an important measure of how well the SQF System is performing. By accurately recording customer complaint types, a supplier can objectively measure changes in their management system and show improvements in a proc...

Last month saw a UK broadsheet, The Guardian, alleged a ‘catalogue’ of hygiene failings in the UK poultry industry . The allegations of malpractice related to 2 Sisters’ plants in Llangefni, Anglesey, Wales, and Scunthorpe, and a farm and abattoir operated by Faccenda.

The newspaper claimed undercover footage, photographic evidence and information fro...

Unannounced and unscheduled audits are growing ever more popular in the mainstream food safety certification schemes. In March this year the new edition of the SQF Code (7.2) included a requirement for suppliers to undertake one unannounced audit within the three year certification cycle.

BRC unannounced audits are available to sites achieving top grades...

BRC have issued a draft version 7 of the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety which has a strong emphasis on product and raw material integrity and authenticity, quite obviously a result of last year’s Horsemeat Scandal.

The scandal in which horsemeat was substituted for beef in a range of products caused uproar with the public particularly in the UK and...