Hello,
Supplier Approval depends completely upon the type of supplier I think. For Raw Materials we use the following:
Suppliers of raw materials or packaging will be asked to supply the following
A current BRC certificate, audit report and corrective actions.
OR
A current BRC certificate and completed questionnaire
OR
A recognised third party quality system accreditation certificate, audit report and corrective actions.
OR
A recognised third party quality system accreditation certificate, audit report, corrective actions and completed questionnaire
If the supplier does not hold a third party audit accreditation their approval for use will be subject to completion of the supplier questionnaire for non food contact suppliers and completion of the supplier questionnaire and audit for raw ingredients and food contact materials.
For risk assessment to determine action required / infromation supplied for approval we do this by looking at the possible effect the material or service may have on the safety/legality/qualtiy of the final product so certification indicates a reduction of risk e.g. pest control services registered with BPCA are less of a risk than a company that is not. Or a meat producer that has BRC Grade A is less of a risk than one that does not have BRC and then risk assessment would indicate that further infromation such as completion of a supplier audit would be needed before approval. Obviously this also depends on the service supplied, More importance would be palced on a supplier of contact packaging than one who supplies pallet wrap for example.
Hope this helps.