Thoughts on moving from BRC to SQF

I work for a company that had been under BRC guidelines/audits and have completed 17 audits successfully at three different facilities.  We have been recently purchased and The new company is wanting the certification scheme to be SQF level 3.  Have any of you switched gears like this?  Do you find SQF harder than BRC?  Just wanted thoughts moving forward.  I've looked over some of the paperwork at the other companies in this group we were bought in to but haven't drawn a conclusion on the challenge of this.

 

I worked at a company that was certified BRC for years, started with nothing then moved to HACCP then BRC. It was agricultural and for several reasons closed down. I was picked up by a wholesaler that was HACCP looking to go towards SQF lv2. I brought alot of my documents & converted & adapted their HACCP program to the level of SQF. It was pretty similar, SQF feels to me to focus more on quality where BRC seem legislation. I was trained in both programs though, BRC & SQF.

I work for a company that had been under BRC guidelines/audits and have completed 17 audits successfully at three different facilities.  We have been recently purchased and The new company is wanting the certification scheme to be SQF level 3.  Have any of you switched gears like this?  Do you find SQF harder than BRC?  Just wanted thoughts moving forward.  I've looked over some of the paperwork at the other companies in this group we were bought in to but haven't drawn a conclusion on the challenge of this.

 

Hi Sheilag,

 

If you browse through the threads on this forum, I think you will conclude that every FS Standard has its own individual "peculiarities". Even GFSI-recognized Standards have their own distinct "flavours".

 

Just to illustrate here are a few particular weirdnesses for 3 popular GFSI-benchmarked Standards,  -

 

BRC - An addiction to Risk Assessments

SQF - Varying Interpretation of Validation

fssc22000 - Meaning of Operational Prerequisite Programs (OPRPs)

 

Whether an auditee finds BRC harder than SQF likely depends on their personal preferences/resources.

We have been involved in helping companies do the change over from BRC to SQF Level 2 and then moved up to level 3 the following year.

I think what it really comes down to is how hard you want to make the transition.

We did for instance have one where we scratch built their entire SQF system but of course used components of their BRC system.

I think you will find that BRC and SQF level 3 will be somewhat a level field for transition with the exception that BRC is a bit more stringent and SQF still has some sway that creates grey areas.