5 replies to this topic

[Eat more fish]

Hello.

We have BRC grade A and have held the highest available grade since 2001. I think it highly probable that BRC ver 6 will be too micromanaging for a simple fish production plant like ours but we as a company need to have an accreditation of some sort. For example, last time the auditor had to stretch the audit out markedly to make it cover 2 days - ver 6 requires a full day on the factory floor. A full day!! They'll be bored witless after about 2 hours.

Besides it'll be like judging a game of statues. With 20 people playing you can move without getting caught as the 'catchers' attention moves to other people, however if you're the only player...

So, I'm considering changing to ISO 22000. I know it's less well known, but as we export the majority of our products to Europe and the Far East, and BRC is predominately targeted at UK supermarkets which we don't touch, I wondered if it was a suitable swap or is it considerd too much of a 'downgrade'?

Some advice/thoughts from people that may have gone through this themselves or be experienced in both would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in anticpation

[Charles.C]

Dear emf,

The obvious question is whether yr customers will go along with iso 22000? I assume you believe the answer is yes. if they require GFSI accepted status (ie theoretically no "downgrade"), it presumably will include pas220 content also.

Technically speaking, you probably need to provide more info. about your setup to enable people here to offer an opinion.
eg what type of products, RTE ?? etc, type of process ?? iso 9001 certified ?

I hv a raw/cooked seafood background but only a direct practical experience of implementing brc. However I hv fairly closely followed the development of iso 22000 / fssc 22000 via this forum and IMO (others may disagree ) the haccp content can be more conceptually complicated than traditional style but it may not make much difference if you currently hv a "simple" haccp plan, eg making frozen raw fish blocks.
A possible shortcoming is that there are very few published accessible examples of model iso 22000 haccp plans. Again, may not be a hindrance in yr case.(As is obvious in my forum posts, I hv a very negative opinion of the way iso hv presented/supported the haccp aspect of their "baby" but this is only my personal view ).

Factories who hv iso 9001 and are experienced with traditional haccp seem to typically conclude that not too difficult.

I guess should be cheaper since no primary revisions in 6yrs, other than the enforced combination with pas220 for certain purposes.

Interested to see what other people think.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Eat more fish]

It's a simple shellfish processing line involving hand shukcing and freezing the meat or selling them fresh. Raw product only, low risk. 120 employees. We outsource the upkeep of the sysytem to a 3rd party and the possiblity of changing to ISO 22000 has been driven by them; we've worked together for many years and I trust them.

Would customers require ISO 22000? Not sure. I've been BRC for 10/11 years (we hold no other meaningful certification) and consequently have had no need to consider asking the question. They'll want something for sure. I'll got to them in the fullness of time but I was feeling around for some preliminary thoughts from people that may have run ISO 22000 as to what sort of reception they got, how it was perceived generally by customers.

Our HACCP, QM, procedures and records are robust and, hopefully, pretty good. I'd hope the leap would be manageable with a bit of rejigging around.

Many thanks for your reply and the guidance therein.

[Charles.C]

Dear emf,

“Shellfish” is rather broad. I deduce from shucking that you are referring to something like clams,mussels, oysters, scallops. Not quite sure from my experience that all of these filter-feeders are necessarily low risk, albeit raw . Oysters can be RTE at the buyers’ own risk of course.

I understand yr comments about micro-management which is one of my own pet-peeves about current BRC philosophy (for whatever their reason, scientific or purely economic).

After yr info. re external haccp control, I felt I should add that iso 22000 has adopted a conceptually different approach to (yr presumably familiar) traditional haccp in certain aspects, notably a re-focussing on control measures and their categorisation (I’m assuming you will be reasonably ok regarding the ISO-structured MS system since a lot of it is analogous to BRC for most people). It may be you are already aware of these haccp issues and hv no reservations on this score however the difference undeniably exists and also permeates to certain implementation consequences (though some pragmatic rationalisation of the originally rather radical innovations has slid in over last 6 years). Some discussion on these differences with links to published comparisons does exist on this forum but most of it would presumably be more relevant to yr outsourcing unit. Hopefully they are well-clued in to the differences. Personally, I would hv stayed well-away from iso 22000 if I already had a well-oiled brc situation smoothly running but I am speaking somewhat theoretically of course .

It is possible that the, so far, absence of comment indicates most posters here have, like you, initially selected one system and stuck to it. Still, early days yet. I must say that offhand I’m not aware of any location where iso 22000 is the most heavily used system compared to other competitors but real, up-to-date statistics are limited and many markets are customer-driven of course.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Simon]

If you're considering ISO 22000 you would need to go for FSSC 22000 as it is GFSI approved. Read more about it here: About FSSC 22000

Regards,
Simon

[ggansner]

Have you thought about IFS? I'll qualify thisresponse in that I am responsible for IFS in the Americas, but if you are selling mostly into Europe, IFS could be your best choice.
regards, George.

Edited by Charles.C, 23 November 2011 - 03:45 AM.
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