SQF Newbie who's hoping to learn a lot!
Good afternoon everyone!
I am sorta fresh out of college (graduated this past December) and started recently working for a produce wholesale company as SQF practictioner. I was able to follow the person I was replacing for a couple weeks and experience our SQF surveillance audit, but... I know I have a massive amount of information to go through and learn.
I hope I will be able to contribute to this forum and in turn get help too!
(Because I know I'll need a lot haha :ejut: ).
P.S. In regards to help, I'm going through the SQF code and overlooking my companies policies and records. If you can help me with these questions, I will greatly appreciate it!
- How often do you have to get HACCP certified training? My certificate of training is over 1.5 years old! I can't find anywhere in the code that specifies how often training should occur.
- What documents and policies do you need to review annually? I know you have to review the business continuity plan, critical food safety limits, and product trace system. Am I missing anything else?
- In addition, I saw that you have the "SQF System in its entirety shall be reviewed at least annually." How do you show this? Do you just sign off on your book? :headhurts:
Welcome! There are many wonderful, helpful people and we all need help at one time or another.
(my apologies I typed out a bunch of answers on another page (word) walked away from my desk for two minutes and it was gone. I don't have to redo them but will help you out first thing tomorrow morning.)
:Welcome: to IFSQN and congratulations on compelting your degree.
As for your questions:
I've heard some people say you need to recertify in HACCP after 3 years... my FSSC auditor was happy with mine being 4 years old and said it was good for 5 years. So from what I can gather there is no hard fast rule. I would suggest when your in your 3-5 year window to start looking to get an idea of who you want to get your retraining through.
You need to review your HACCP plan yearly, or when there are changes to your system (IE new piece of equipment, removing a piece of equipment, etc). If I think of anything else I'll post it.
I'm not 100% sure on your last question but I believe that performing internal audits on each section of the code should suffice for reviewing your SQF system annually. I was only in SQF for 1 year, though I was a certified practitioner, so I'm pretty sure that's right.
Welcome!
Look at your HACCP Certificate. Some people in my company have a HACCP certification that never expires, the training session I took is good for three years. This information should be indicated on your certificate.
Ahh I see. My certificate doesn't have an expiration date, but I'll definitely look into renewing it once the three years are up. I may also get SQF certified training soon, so hopefully my records will be okay!
We're going to implement an SQF system internal audit annual policy so I hope that will suffice as evidence.
Thank you for your imput everyone!!! :spoton:
I do recommend the SQF practitioner course. Some people have implemented SQF without it but I found it a helpful tool in working with the quality manager at my last position to implement SQF there.
My certificates are well aged and no has ever questioned them. If you ever do fish & seafood you will need a specific HACCP certificate for that.
I agree with Mr. I a good practitioner course would be invaluable.