To Enroll or Not to Enroll?
That is my current question. We have been inspected by AIB for 3 years, and just scored 860. Some of the larger issues are in the works to fix, like a fast roll-up door for the production building and a vacuum cleaner that will reach those cobwebs that are up high and hard to get rid of. Production is doing a better job of cleaning than in the past, and we actually are getting the recordkeeping on a more consistent basis.
But we still have some things we are not perfect at, so we were thinking that the enrollment process might help us improve incrementally so that we would be ready for a certification audit around the end of the year or start of next year.
I have no idea how much enrollment costs (got a query into BRC about that), but for those who have been down this road, is enrollment a good idea, or a waste of time and money?
We are a small company with finite resources, but we sell our products globally, so a GFSI certification will be a big plus for our business.
Any and all opinions :welcome: .
Martha
It has not been the best day and am dead tired....so maybe I am not understanding the question....but it sounds like your wondering if registering with a GFSI scheme such as BRC or SQF will help you improve.
If that is your question, then the answer is only if it provides the driving force to start working on the program and will cause upper management to loosen the purse strings to provide what you need in resources.
To me BRC or SQF are variations on a theme and which one to pick is more often driven by customers and company comfort level.
Registration for SQF is relatively inexpensive and based on the dollar volume of sales. I don't remember the BRC cost.
If you are already motivated then the registering won't give you anything additional other than customers can see you are on the list and working on certification, however unless they are specifically interested to look, they won't know to look.
The advice is always check with your largest customers first to see if they have a preference.
After that the choice of BRC, SQF, FSSC and IFS is much of a much-ness as they are all GFSI approved, reliable standards that will stand the test of time.
BRC do offer the enrollment program that allows you to take small steps and I believe this is somewhat similar to the SQF levels.
By the way 860 out of what Martha?
The advice is always check with your largest customers first to see if they have a preference.
After that the choice of BRC, SQF, FSSC and IFS is much of a much-ness as they are all GFSI approved, reliable standards that will stand the test of time.
BRC do offer the enrollment program that allows you to take small steps and I believe this is somewhat similar to the SQF levels.
By the way 860 out of what Martha?
One of our customers would love us to go GFSI, and others are starting to put it into their vendor qualification documents.
BRC has an "Enrollment" plan that gives you access to supporting documents and a practice audit. None of the other schemes have that.
That's what I'm interested in, the specific BRC Enrollment plan.
860/1000.
Martha
It has not been the best day and am dead tired....so maybe I am not understanding the question....but it sounds like your wondering if registering with a GFSI scheme such as BRC or SQF will help you improve.
If that is your question, then the answer is only if it provides the driving force to start working on the program and will cause upper management to loosen the purse strings to provide what you need in resources.
To me BRC or SQF are variations on a theme and which one to pick is more often driven by customers and company comfort level.
Registration for SQF is relatively inexpensive and based on the dollar volume of sales. I don't remember the BRC cost.
If you are already motivated then the registering won't give you anything additional other than customers can see you are on the list and working on certification, however unless they are specifically interested to look, they won't know to look.
Sorry if I'm not clear. BRC has a special program called "Enrollment" that steps you through the process of getting ready with support and a practice audit.
We cannot go with SQF because of a quirk of one of their requirements.
We have suppliers from US and Europe who are interested in any GFSI scheme, so the specific one is not important for them. That's why I decided to go BRC, but this "Enrollment" plan is interesting.
Thanks, and get a good night's sleep.
Martha
Hi All,
The Enrolment is a pre-audit.
The BRC certification body will charge you about £700 ($1,100) to do a pre inspection of your facilities. It is fundamentally a full BRC audit, however the grade only stays with your company and does not get registered on their site. The advantages of this are:
1. You generally get the same auditor for enrolment as the full BRC audit therefore if they only find a handful of minor issues, they can't come back and give you loads of minor/major non-conformances (unless there has been a major issue between enrolment visit and full audit).
2. It shows your senior management team how serious the audit process is, and how much work is required over the 2-3 days the auditor is on site
Disadvantage
1. If you have paid £700 for the enrolment option and get an A-grade, it doesn't actually count to anything, and you still have to pay the full amount for the BRC audit (maybe £1,300/$1,900).
Don't quote me on costs though as all BRC approved certification bodies charge different amounts, and it really depends on the size of your company, turnover, and number of staff employed.
Incidentally, I believe the other GFSI approved schemes also do the same thing however don't shout about it like BRC. Give them a call and ask.
Thanks,
Simon
Hi All,
The Enrolment is a pre-audit.
The BRC certification body will charge you about £700 ($1,100) to do a pre inspection of your facilities. It is fundamentally a full BRC audit, however the grade only stays with your company and does not get registered on their site. The advantages of this are:
1. You generally get the same auditor for enrolment as the full BRC audit therefore if they only find a handful of minor issues, they can't come back and give you loads of minor/major non-conformances (unless there has been a major issue between enrolment visit and full audit).
2. It shows your senior management team how serious the audit process is, and how much work is required over the 2-3 days the auditor is on site
Disadvantage
1. If you have paid £700 for the enrolment option and get an A-grade, it doesn't actually count to anything, and you still have to pay the full amount for the BRC audit (maybe £1,300/$1,900).
Don't quote me on costs though as all BRC approved certification bodies charge different amounts, and it really depends on the size of your company, turnover, and number of staff employed.
Incidentally, I believe the other GFSI approved schemes also do the same thing however don't shout about it like BRC. Give them a call and ask.
Thanks,
Simon
Thanks, Simon. I did think that if you were graded highly enough, that the first audit could be used and you would not need the second audit. I'll check on that.
I had not thought of the advantage of not getting more non-compliances if they were not stated at the pre-audit. That makes sense.
Martha
Hi MWidra,
I would strongly recommend that you engage AIB Food Safety Training on-site by AIB expert, or else try opt for FSSC 22000, which is GFSI accepted, and much more flexible to score.
Hi MWidra,
I would strongly recommend that you engage AIB Food Safety Training on-site by AIB expert, or else try opt for FSSC 22000, which is GFSI accepted, and much more flexible to score.
Thank you for the input. We are considering using AIB to certify us for the BRC standard, as we have a history with them.
What specifically makes you say that FSSC is more flexible than BRC? I saw that BRC was more flexible than SQF, which was one reason that I chose that scheme. But I saw that the FSSC scheme was cobbled together from several standards that I can't access without buying them, and there are few resonrces for FSSC to help me know anything about the requirements. It kind of worried me that it could be a hodgepodge and not a standard with a unified vision. Also, there have always been gap analysis tools available for SQF and BRC, which pretty much lay out the standards for you, but I was not aware that one was available for FSSC.
Thanks,
Martha
Hi Martha,
FSSC 22000 is based upon ISO 22000 with PAS 220. Peanuts as compared to BRC/IFS.
Let me know if you wish to get hold of the FSSC schemes, I hv them with me.
Rgds, Zue
Hi Martha,
FSSC 22000 is based upon ISO 22000 with PAS 220. Peanuts as compared to BRC/IFS.
Let me know if you wish to get hold of the FSSC schemes, I hv them with me.
Rgds, Zue
Dear zue-rais,
It depends on the size of the peanuts. Jack and the Beanstalk ?
Rgds / Charles.C