11 replies to this topic

[Simon]

It’s the question that most of those responsible for welcoming customer and certification body auditors through their factory doors ask?

Well GFSI are very busy benchmarking food safety management system standards throughout the world and they have several large retailers on board who have agreed to reduce duplication in the supply chain through the common acceptance of any of the GFSI benchmarked schemes.

The GFSI vision is ‘once certified, accepted everywhere’ and of course it is a worthy goal. Any reduction in duplication of audits and their associated costs in terms of time, effort and money would certainly be welcomed by the food industry.

My question is will it ever happen in practice? Or will we just have another layer in the already very expensive cake. Its early days so we have to wait and see.

In my experience the duplication does not necessarily come from suppliers being required to hold multiple certifications to food safety management system standards, but from the duplication caused by lack of trust in the Certification Process.

Within the BRC Standards (which have been around since 1998) we know there is still reluctance by some customers to accept (trust) certain Certification Bodies, some even going as far as to state which Certification Body must be used; or if not going quite that far they require the audit report is desk audited by their chosen Certification Body.

We also know that on top of BRC Certification many customers still carry out audits against their own standards and codes of practice; as one example take the Tesco PIU audit and there are many more.

Most suppliers have many customers and it only takes one to create another requirement and a duplicate audit.

For me it’s not the quality of the standard; they are much the same; it’s the quality of the audit that is the key to reducing duplication. With the focus on standardizing the standards I fear we will still be left with the issue of lack of trust in the certification process.

For me that can only be achieved by having an extremely robust and active Accreditation process (approving and auditing of Certification Bodies) and that is where, in my opinion, much work is still required.

Regards,
Simon

[rosie]

Compare also with the mandatory EHO audit which IME took about 2 hours - A4 sheet back and front (maybe things are different now) - how have the statutory food control bodies got away with suh poor auditing for so long? - There is none of the invaluable advice available on this forum to be seen on any satutory website.

Rosie

[cazyncymru]

It’s the question that most of those responsible for welcoming customer and certification body auditors through their factory doors ask?

Well GFSI are very busy benchmarking food safety management system standards throughout the world and they have several large retailers on board who have agreed to reduce duplication in the supply chain through the common acceptance of any of the GFSI benchmarked schemes.

The GFSI vision is ‘once certified, accepted everywhere’ and of course it is a worthy goal. Any reduction in duplication of audits and their associated costs in terms of time, effort and money would certainly be welcomed by the food industry.

My question is will it ever happen in practice? Or will we just have another layer in the already very expensive cake. Its early days so we have to wait and see.

In my experience the duplication does not necessarily come from suppliers being required to hold multiple certifications to food safety management system standards, but from the duplication caused by lack of trust in the Certification Process.

Within the BRC Standards (which have been around since 1998) we know there is still reluctance by some customers to accept (trust) certain Certification Bodies, some even going as far as to state which Certification Body must be used; or if not going quite that far they require the audit report is desk audited by their chosen Certification Body.

We also know that on top of BRC Certification many customers still carry out audits against their own standards and codes of practice; as one example take the Tesco PIU audit and there are many more.

Most suppliers have many customers and it only takes one to create another requirement and a duplicate audit.

For me it’s not the quality of the standard; they are much the same; it’s the quality of the audit that is the key to reducing duplication. With the focus on standardizing the standards I fear we will still be left with the issue of lack of trust in the certification process.

For me that can only be achieved by having an extremely robust and active Accreditation process (approving and auditing of Certification Bodies) and that is where, in my opinion, much work is still required.

Regards,
Simon

When Tesco's go bankrupt or there is parity amongst all the standards / certification bodies/ auditors.


cazx

[Simon]

So what you're saying is never Caz. I wouldn't put you down as a defeatist...your from Wales man!

Regards,
Simon

[Cathy]

Don't give up hope yet. I recentlu spoke with someone from a large company in the U.S. , Conagra, and they reported an 80% reduction in audits. They also say they can get more done in less time since their systems are more organized. It takes a lot of pushing back to get this to happen, but I am still hopeful.

[Simon]

Don't give up hope yet. I recentlu spoke with someone from a large company in the U.S. , Conagra, and they reported an 80% reduction in audits. They also say they can get more done in less time since their systems are more organized. It takes a lot of pushing back to get this to happen, but I am still hopeful.

Hi Cathy,

In the UK with regard to food safety standards we are further down the line (BRC 12 years). Initially we did see a large reduction in food safety audits, large retailers closed or downsized their technical auditing teams, but over the last few years we have seen the number of audits creep back. I believe this is due to the reduced credibility in food safety audits against standards particularly because of inconsistencies in Certification Body Auditing standards.

Regards,
Simon

[Madam A. D-tor]

Dear all,

I do not think food safety audit in specific or audits in general wil be reduced in the future.
As long as retailers, food handlers and authorities believe that auditing is the way of controlling their suppliers/producers. The number of audits will not reduce.
Especially for brand owners, audits are the way of controlling suppliers and pushing requirements on this suppliers. Not only for food safety, but also on food defense and sustainability. I think that in the future even audits will be conducted on personal expenses from managers of suppliers. Brand owners do not want to have negative media attention on food safety, animal welfare, sustainability and huge profits made from the money of their customers.

I also agree with Simon that the trust in third party audits is reducing. Auditor training and qualification by examination might help to improve this trust again.
On the other hand trust is also depending on prejudices. A Britisch retailer will accept (trust) a BRC audit conducted by a Britisch auditor in UK. But their might be doubts with this retailer if the audit was done by an Italian auditor in a South European Country. First Britisch retailers do not believe that companies in other countries are as good as the companies in UK (Britisch Best). Second some countries are known to be not very strict with regulations and very sensitive to corruption.

Due to the due dilligance policies in UK and to the fear from brand owners for negative communication on internet, on TV and in newspapers, etc., audits will IMO increase. They do not see another way to gain entrustment to the safety (sustainability, aptitude, etc) of the products they are selling.

[cazyncymru]

There are basically three problems.

Just about anybody can be an auditor. There should be a minimum educational / auditing qualification that auditors should have. In reality they ought to belong to a recognized auditing body such as IRCA. However, IRCA tends to cover auditors for ISO standards and not BRC / Soil Association auditors. Having a similar scheme for BRC/SA at least you know your getting someone who has had to pass an pretty robust system in order to be approved.

Secondly, depending on which certification body you use, the retailer may not "recognize" them. We have posted on this disparity in the past. Unfortunately, if you supply to all the retailers, there is no one CB that they all like. An even if you do pick a CB that your retailer likes, they still don't trust them.

Thirdly, as Simon says (been waiting a long time to say that!), the retailers now have their own standards, and the majority of these emulate BRC and more. In fact, i'd be very surprised if we don't find half of the Tesco Manufacturing Standards in the next version of BRC. Their auditors will have little or no knowledge of ISO 22k or BRC V5, but will know their standard. All their concerned with is "Do you have BRC V5? and did you get an A?"


So, we'll just have to grin and bare it.

I do wonder if the retailers, after one of their "unannounced audits" realise how many good Quality and Technical managers take the fall for something that they could not control!! Personally i've been lucky, but i know others who aren't quite as lucky.

Caz x

[Cathy]

I gues it is true for some situations that almost anyone can be an auditor but that isn't true in all cases. To be an SQF auditor you must have education and experience and a minimum number of hours auditing in a specific food sector to be able to audit within that sector.

[Esther]

It’s the question that most of those responsible for welcoming customer and certification body auditors through their factory doors ask?

Well GFSI are very busy benchmarking food safety management system standards throughout the world and they have several large retailers on board who have agreed to reduce duplication in the supply chain through the common acceptance of any of the GFSI benchmarked schemes.

The GFSI vision is ‘once certified, accepted everywhere’ and of course it is a worthy goal. Any reduction in duplication of audits and their associated costs in terms of time, effort and money would certainly be welcomed by the food industry.

My question is will it ever happen in practice? Or will we just have another layer in the already very expensive cake. Its early days so we have to wait and see.

In my experience the duplication does not necessarily come from suppliers being required to hold multiple certifications to food safety management system standards, but from the duplication caused by lack of trust in the Certification Process.

Within the BRC Standards (which have been around since 1998) we know there is still reluctance by some customers to accept (trust) certain Certification Bodies, some even going as far as to state which Certification Body must be used; or if not going quite that far they require the audit report is desk audited by their chosen Certification Body.

We also know that on top of BRC Certification many customers still carry out audits against their own standards and codes of practice; as one example take the Tesco PIU audit and there are many more.

Most suppliers have many customers and it only takes one to create another requirement and a duplicate audit.

For me it’s not the quality of the standard; they are much the same; it’s the quality of the audit that is the key to reducing duplication. With the focus on standardizing the standards I fear we will still be left with the issue of lack of trust in the certification process.

For me that can only be achieved by having an extremely robust and active Accreditation process (approving and auditing of Certification Bodies) and that is where, in my opinion, much work is still required.

Regards,
Simon

Dear Simon

Totally agree with you.

In fact, this is an issue I expressed in my very early years in this forum and also recently; AUDITORS COMPETENCE!! VERY SIMILAR AUDITS THE CLIENT HAS TO PAY FOR!!I think it is time to put good sense on all this nonsense world.

And another thing: majority of audits are announced ones! Maybe something to think about if we ( the whole world) wants to improve.

Best regards
Esther

[Simon]

Dear Simon

Totally agree with you.

In fact, this is an issue I expressed in my very early years in this forum and also recently; AUDITORS COMPETENCE!! VERY SIMILAR AUDITS THE CLIENT HAS TO PAY FOR!!I think it is time to put good sense on all this nonsense world.

And another thing: majority of audits are announced ones! Maybe something to think about if we ( the whole world) wants to improve.

Best regards
Esther

I think we all want the same thing; let's hope those that can make the necessary changes are reading.

Regards,
Simon

[Charles.C]

I think we all want the same thing

My guess is that the auditing profession is not too unhappy with the status quo.

@ Madame D-tor - Britisch, Britischer - Time for a new spellchecker
Regardless, yr comments are spot-on. And having inspected certified factories in various countries I am afraid that an automatic policy of distrust is frequently validated. ISO - 9000 originated this situation perhaps.


Rgds / Charles.C