FSSC - One Standard Acceptable To All

Hi ,

Forgive me if this has already been answered elsewhere.

But, we are currrently being audited many times for ISO, national food standards, customer specs etc. We barely get a chance to asssign action plans to one audit report before we are in the thick of another.

Will FSSC become an one standard to rule them all or is it wishful thinking.

Thanks,

SriramB

Hi ,

Forgive me if this has already been answered elsewhere.

But, we are currrently being audited many times for ISO, national food standards, customer specs etc. We barely get a chance to asssign action plans to one audit report before we are in the thick of another.

Will FSSC become an one standard to rule them all or is it wishful thinking.

Thanks,

SriramB

Sriram

A simple answer - wishful thinking!

However it would be good if there was mutual recognition if standards - in some ways that is what the GFSI is all about, but there is a long was to go on this.

Ken

Hi ,

Forgive me if this has already been answered elsewhere.

But, we are currrently being audited many times for ISO, national food standards, customer specs etc. We barely get a chance to asssign action plans to one audit report before we are in the thick of another.

Will FSSC become an one standard to rule them all or is it wishful thinking.

Thanks,

SriramB

I would say wishfull thinking with a glimmer of hope. It will not necessarily be FSSC that stands alone but the GFSI accepted standards. Most companies will accept any GFSI standard but there are a few that are stuck on certain types or formats.

I actually came online to discuss the ones that are stuck, and am starting a new thread next.

Hi ,

We sometimes have the same auditor/auditors trying to cover more than one standard concurrently, and this may affect the delivery of value from the audit process as the time constraints come into play.

Inventing new standards rather than fixing the existing ones seems to be a wasteful approach

Cheers,

Will FSSC become an one standard to rule them all or is it wishful thinking.

Hi SriramB, I agree with TSmith - worldwide acceptance of the GFSI benchmarked standards is about as close as we can hope for. If pressed to choose one standard it would have to be FSSC 22000.

Regards,
Simon

It would be nice and a welcome to have just one standard but we have a fair way to go for acceptance on this. I agree with what simon has posted in that FSSC will be the next driving force!!

Ajay

Having been involved in the food safety industry for the last 18 years, I like to endorse Ken's view again. Its wishful thinking

You see, we have been asked recently to help a client drive towards BRC - Consumer Product certification for a rubber glove manf. where the product comes under Group 3. Personally I do not agree and would be happy to get them to FSSC 22000 instead since products are used in hospitals, food operations and production. etc. which are risk sensitive industries. So here you go. A manufacturer may just end up having multiple certifications which can be counter productive. Is this a confused world we are living in or just confused bureaucracies?

For some companies (if your are supplyer of Coca-Cola for example) - yes. But retails in Europe and UK are still rather concervative

well; Xkcd got it head on:

My hope is that globalization will drive a "one size fits all" food safety/quality standard. In the long run it only makes sense. But keep in mind that there's a lot of money at stake with this issue (let's be honest; there are a lot of politics involved here) and depending on the lobbying strength of the various GFSI organizations who obviously have a stake in preserving the status quo harmonization will be a long way down the road.

I am in agreement with what you are stating. Australia is a relatively small country when we speak in terms of population, and here we have many standards operating. Each major supermarket chain has their own standard in addition to what is required and yes it is very political as there are many stakeholders too. It is not an easy task for an auditor to conduct multiple standard audits at the same time.

I thought that FSSC is only for food manufacturers.

Gail
IQC - Israel

Having been involved in the food safety industry for the last 18 years, I like to endorse Ken's view again. Its wishful thinking

You see, we have been asked recently to help a client drive towards BRC - Consumer Product certification for a rubber glove manf. where the product comes under Group 3. Personally I do not agree and would be happy to get them to FSSC 22000 instead since products are used in hospitals, food operations and production. etc. which are risk sensitive industries. So here you go. A manufacturer may just end up having multiple certifications which can be counter productive. Is this a confused world we are living in or just confused bureaucracies?

I thought that FSSC is only for food manufacturers.

Gail
IQC - Israel

Not at all Gail, check this out: http://www.ifsqn.com...ging-materials' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>PAS 223: PRP’s on food safety for manufacturing Packaging Materials

Regards,
Simon