8 replies to this topic

[Weiner.C]

hi All,

i'm a little confused with all the regulatory/standardization organization and their relationship.
as far as i understand the BRC and IFS are mainly for the UK market and they cover part of ISO22000 and 9001. they cover food safety and facilities.
GFSI is a global standard organization for all markets like UK, USA, EU and AU, they recognize BRC, IFS, SQF and other, is that mean that if i have GFSI i also have all the other like BRC, IFS, SQF? but if i have only BRC it doesn't mean i have GFSI??
if i have BRC will it be easy for me to get GFSI?

appreciate your help to understand the relationship with all those organization.

chen

[Tony-C]

hi All,

i'm a little confused with all the regulatory/standardization organization and their relationship.
as far as i understand the BRC and IFS are mainly for the UK market and they cover part of ISO22000 and 9001. they cover food safety and facilities.
GFSI is a global standard organization for all markets like UK, USA, EU and AU, they recognize BRC, IFS, SQF and other, is that mean that if i have GFSI i also have all the other like BRC, IFS, SQF? but if i have only BRC it doesn't mean i have GFSI??
if i have BRC will it be easy for me to get GFSI?

appreciate your help to understand the relationship with all those organization.

chen

Hi Chen

GFSI does not carry out food safety management system certification.
GFSI 'benchmarks' food safety standards.
GFSI carries out 'benchmarking which is a “procedure by which a food safety-related scheme is compared to the GFSI Guidance Document”.
Upon completion of the benchmarking process, a food safety management scheme is ‘recognised’ by GFSI when all of its criteria are considered to be equivalent to the requirements set out in the GFSI Guidance Document.
Achieving equivalence against a common set of requirements means that GFSI recognized schemes have a common foundation for managing food safety which should provide consistent audit results.
In order to be recognised by GFSI, a scheme must successfully go through the GFSI benchmarking process.

Recognised schemes against which you can be certified are:
BRC Global Standard for Food Safety (Fifth Edition)
CanadaGAP (Canadian Horticultural Council On-Farm Food Safety Program)
FSSC 22000 Food Products (Incorporating ISO 22000)
Global Aquaculture Alliance Seafood Processing Standard
GLOBALG.A.P.
Global Red Meat Standard (GRMS)
IFS Food Version 5
PrimusGFS
Safe Quality Food

Regards,

Tony

Edited by Tony-C, 15 April 2012 - 12:48 PM.

[Weiner.C]

Hi Chen

GFSI does not carry out food safety management system certification.
GFSI 'benchmarks' food safety standards.
GFSI carries out 'benchmarking which is a “procedure by which a food safety-related scheme is compared to the GFSI Guidance Document”.
Upon completion of the benchmarking process, a food safety management scheme is ‘recognised’ by GFSI when all of its criteria are considered to be equivalent to the requirements set out in the GFSI Guidance Document.
Achieving equivalence against a common set of requirements means that GFSI recognized schemes have a common foundation for managing food safety which should provide consistent audit results.
In order to be recognised by GFSI, a scheme must successfully go through the GFSI benchmarking process.

Recognised schemes against which you can be certified are:
BRC Global Standard for Food Safety (Fifth Edition)
CanadaGAP (Canadian Horticultural Council On-Farm Food Safety Program)
FSSC 22000 Food Products (Incorporating ISO 22000)
Global Aquaculture Alliance Seafood Processing Standard
GLOBALG.A.P.
Global Red Meat Standard (GRMS)
IFS Food Version 5
PrimusGFS
Safe Quality Food

Regards,

Tony

thanks Tony.
so what you are saying is that if i apply for one of the Recognized schemes in the above list, i basically also recognize as GFSI - please correct me if i'm wrong.

so in this case what do i gain/achieve from having GFSI?


also, if BRC is regarded mainly for UK market and it recognize as GFSI does it mean that my customers in the USA could be satisfy with BRC/GFSI?

Chen

[GMO]

I can't speak for US customers but for all BRC's failings, I think they are more pragmatic and practical than some other schemes. I found ISO9001 audits (admittedly years ago now) heavily paperwork based looking at every dotted i and crossed t but failing to spot major issues on the shop floor.

So I think BRC is a fairly good standard, or at least a good standard amongst poor ones. It is compiled by the British Retail Consortium and it is "the standard" for UK manufacturing but that doesn't mean it's not applicable to other countries. As I understand it, the GFSI is to help benchmark standards against each other to enable free trade among countries who perhaps don't have much experience of other standards, hopefully to mean you don't have to be accredited to everything and to help standards gain credibility in other countries.

If you are particularly interested in supplying a US customer, I'd ask them what standard they want you to be accredited to but you do risk having to do BRC, ISO9001, ISO22000, AIB etc, etc.

I think it's a bit of a misnomer as well to say BRC asks for part of ISO9001/22000. I set up a FSQMS to comply with ISO22000 and BRC version 5 a couple of years back and I didn't find ISO22000 added all that much, just the annoying concept of oPRPs perhaps(!) I found BRC a much better standard to help me write my FSQMS though because it was more explicit about what it wanted. I know, for example, having talked to an auditor from LRQA that if they were auditing against ISO9001 not ISO22000, they could and would still look at and raise non conformances against the HACCP plan because there was a vague clause in ISO9001 about complying with legislation and HACCP is legislation... erm, seems a little unfair.

[tsmith7858]

I can't speak for US customers but for all BRC's failings, I think they are more pragmatic and practical than some other schemes. I found ISO9001 audits (admittedly years ago now) heavily paperwork based looking at every dotted i and crossed t but failing to spot major issues on the shop floor.

So I think BRC is a fairly good standard, or at least a good standard amongst poor ones. It is compiled by the British Retail Consortium and it is "the standard" for UK manufacturing but that doesn't mean it's not applicable to other countries. As I understand it, the GFSI is to help benchmark standards against each other to enable free trade among countries who perhaps don't have much experience of other standards, hopefully to mean you don't have to be accredited to everything and to help standards gain credibility in other countries.

If you are particularly interested in supplying a US customer, I'd ask them what standard they want you to be accredited to but you do risk having to do BRC, ISO9001, ISO22000, AIB etc, etc.

I think it's a bit of a misnomer as well to say BRC asks for part of ISO9001/22000. I set up a FSQMS to comply with ISO22000 and BRC version 5 a couple of years back and I didn't find ISO22000 added all that much, just the annoying concept of oPRPs perhaps(!) I found BRC a much better standard to help me write my FSQMS though because it was more explicit about what it wanted. I know, for example, having talked to an auditor from LRQA that if they were auditing against ISO9001 not ISO22000, they could and would still look at and raise non conformances against the HACCP plan because there was a vague clause in ISO9001 about complying with legislation and HACCP is legislation... erm, seems a little unfair.

GMO: I would have agreed with your assessment of ISO years ago but they have changed their thinking and are not as bogged down by paperwork anymore.

OP: The motto for GFSI is "Once certified, accepted everywhere". That means you should be able to choose the GFSI scheme that suits your needs and anyone that says they want GFSI should accept it.

Unfortunately, I don't think that is 100% true yet so you need to make sure your customers (or at least major ones) are in agreement with your choice or you are willing to fight if someone tells you BRC isn't good enough, you need SQF or whatever they feel is right.

GMO: If you are being audited to ISO 9001 and they find something wrong with HACCP would it not impact quality and/or customer expectations? We are certified to both and have separate audits. When doing ISO 22000 I will always argue that quality is not a part of it but it always bites me in the bum when the auditor comes back for ISO 9001 because he can agrue customer expectations.

[GMO]

GMO: If you are being audited to ISO 9001 and they find something wrong with HACCP would it not impact quality

No because HACCP is for food safety.

I just argue that if you are being audited against something it should be explicitly written in the standard. I mean if that is acceptable then why not have a standard saying "Product shall be legal and keep your customers happy all the time"? Yes, of course that is the aim but the standard IMO should give you some idea on how to achieve this aim and not try to catch you out. IMO ISO seems to be trying to catch out suppliers not improve them.

I mean if someone was discriminating against a disabled employee or had sexist practices is that covered by ISO9001? Well it's law...

[Simao Monteiro]

Dear GMO,

ISO 9001:2008 syas: "In planning for the realization of the product, theOrganization should determine the quality objectives and requirements for theproduct (7.1)".

So, food safety is a requirement of the product and it's legal. Whenyou are being audited to ISO 9001 and the auditor finds something wrong with HACCP, IMO it impacts quality for sure.

kamandru

[Charles.C]

Dear All,

I suspect a search through iso's own archives will find that they themselves regarded iso22000 and 1 or 2 bridging standards as the "safety part" of the iso9001 quality standard.
Obviously if you choose to use the "fitness for use" criterion for 9001, covers just about anything you like. And then along came HACCP. Actually in more or less the same decade I think.

Rgds / Charles.C

[GMO]

Dear GMO,

ISO 9001:2008 syas: "In planning for the realization of the product, theOrganization should determine the quality objectives and requirements for theproduct (7.1)".

So, food safety is a requirement of the product and it's legal. Whenyou are being audited to ISO 9001 and the auditor finds something wrong with HACCP, IMO it impacts quality for sure.

kamandru

Yeah but there's no detail. What would a HACCP non conformance be? Lack of validation? Verification inadequate? Or is it only a non conformance if the HACCP plan is absent? Also I (and many others) would argue that quality has no place in HACCP, a 'quality' requirement is not a food safety one. It's a viewpoint which is shared by approx 80-90% of HACCP plans I've audited so not unusual.