Which accreditation standard to maintain?
I've recently started work for a plastic packaging manufacturer, and have a food background. The company has the following accreditations:
- FSSC 22000 Certification scheme for food safety systems including ISO 22000:2005, ISO/TS 22002-4:2013 and additional FSSC 22000 requirements.
- CAC HACCPVER:2003 - CODEX HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices)
- QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM which complies with the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 for the following scope The manufacture of flexible packaging products for food and general applications
- BRC Global Standard for Packaging and Packaging Materials Issue 5: July 2015
Reading through some forum posts I get that FSSC22000 = iso22000 + iso22002-4 ( in our case .
My question is this - Does not the BRC accreditation essentially encompass all of the other elements - do we really need to maintain these other accreditations ?
I've recently started work for a plastic packaging manufacturer, and have a food background. The company has the following accreditations:
(1) FSSC 22000 Certification scheme for food safety systems including ISO 22000:2005, ISO/TS 22002-4:2013 and additional FSSC 22000 requirements.
(2) CAC HACCP, VER:2003 - CODEX HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices)
(3) - QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM which complies with the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 for the following scope The manufacture of flexible packaging products for food and general applications
(4) - BRC Global Standard for Packaging and Packaging Materials Issue 5: July 2015
Reading through some forum posts I get that FSSC22000 = iso22000 + iso22002-4 ( in our case .
My question is this - Does not the BRC accreditation essentially encompass all of the other elements - do we really need to maintain these other accreditations ?
Hi PQA,
I note that Item (3) is, usually, not regarded as a FS Standard. Item (2) is a Code of Practice.
As you say, Certification to the FS Standards (1,4) will inevitably involve some overlap since they share a nominally common objective.
However items 1, 4 do have some differences, eg (a) (1) uses Codex haccp, (2) uses iso-haccp, (b) (1) is relatively more "Generic", (2) is relatively more "Prescriptive".
So, in respect to Standards 1/4, the answer to yr query Is sort of No. (BRC also includes some "surplus" non-safety related topics)
However, based on previous threads here, the most common reason that Companies are certified to various Standards is Customer driven, ie the Customer requires different Standards. Theoretically all GFSI-recognized Standards should be equivalent but Customers unfortunately often still have their own preferences.
HI PQA
It looks as though we are in the same role. As a quality manager for a Plastic packaging manufacture we keep it simple.
ISO9001:2015 and BRC/IOP
together they cover pretty much all of our customer expectations and any legislative/regulative requirements.
As an extra ISO5001 for Energy (Pointless IMO) and PS9000:2011 ( For Healthcare and Pharma Products also Pointless IMO)
Thanks Charles for your as always knowledgeable reply. I want to start some discussion around what we really need wrt our customer requirements, and this is very helpful.
John - What you are doing is what I had envisaged, coming from a food manufacturer/packing with BRC where BRC satisfied our customer requirements due to it's all encompassing scope. I shall watch your postings keenly : )