7 replies to this topic

[WowQC]

We are going for our first BRC audit this year. In your experience, what is the best way to go for BRC: 1. enrolment program, 2. hire a consultant, or 3. research yourself and go for the full audit right away. We are a small company, and want to keep the expense down. I realize that if we fail the audit, we go to the enrolment program and the cost would be the same as if we had done so right away. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[Charles.C]

We are going for our first BRC audit this year. In your experience, what is the best way to go for BRC: 1. enrolment program, 2. hire a consultant, or 3. research yourself and go for the full audit right away. We are a small company, and want to keep the expense down. I realize that if we fail the audit, we go to the enrolment program and the cost would be the same as if we had done so right away. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

Dear Wow,

 

Product ?

Process?

 

Any experience / certification other standards ? eg HACCP ? eg ISO 9001 ?

 

Technical Capabilities ? (Anyone's)

 

Fixed (eg "short") time scale ?

 

Rgds / Charles.C

[Zeeshan]

The most important one among the Charles's queries is  - Any experience / certification other standards eg QMS, FSMS, HACCP ISO 9001.

If your answer is YES. Then I recommend option 3, otherwise go for option 1.

 

Regards:

Muhammad Zeeshan Zaki

[WowQC]

We have 2 production lines. We have a trained HACCP person, but we are not certified with HACCP. I have been doing a lot of reading (such as on this forum). We are a low-risk faciliy. We have gone through 3rd-party food safety audits before, but this is our first certification audit.

 

Thanks for all your help.

[George @ Safefood 360°]

The enrollment program is really designed for operations and regions where BRC is an aspiration and not necessarily an immediate attainable objective. In my mind it is a marketing tool by the BRC to get 'on board' businesses in emerging nations who are not currently in a position to attain the standard but in time will be. Get then early strategy. (This is not a cynical point, by the way, just my reading of the commercial demands of competing global standards).

 

Given you have a core team in place, perhaps a prudent approach is to use a consultant to conduct a full gaps analysis, give you a good report and 'job list' which you can work on internally and then bring the consultant back in for a pre-audit assessment to cover off any remaining gaps. This is cost effective and should get you over the certification line.

 

George 

[WowQC]

Thanks George.

 

I will take these suggestions to our management meeting and see what they decide.

[john.kukoly]

It looks like you already have the most important step in play - going to senior management to get their committment.

 

After that, you need to be as involved and knowledgable about the requirements as possible. Training is always a way to leap forward in the process, but my  recomendation would be to get the Standard, read it, and do your own gap analysis first, then training. This way you can really focus on learning the things you need to know, perparation prior to training is a far better way to go, if you can.

 

As for a consultant, there are some great ones out there, again, they can speed the process (at a cost, of course). To use the BRC process when thinking about a consultant (aka 3.5.3 management of suppliers of services) you should have a set of criteria for approval (does the consultant need any specific BRC credentials?) and ongoing monitoring of progress.

 

In my opinion, the two cornerstones to food safety, and certification are management committment and a solid internal audit program.

 

Good luck!

[WowQC]

Thanks John.

 

I have read the Standard and the interpretation guidelines (over, and over, and over, and...). I am also going for training on the internal audit.

 

Thanks for your advice