Vegetarian Claim Validation (In-House)

Hi all,

I'm having hard time understanding the BRC auditor remarks with regards to our "suitable for vegetarian claim". According to him "In house monitoring validation for Vegetarian claim is required."

Our product is coconut water packed in tetra packaging. I was thinking of doing a validation approach using: scientific or technical literature references wherein I will demonstrate that all ingredients we used are from plant based origins and I will also do an assessment of processing lines that no animal origin items are being used during processing.

Is this enough already? Or do you have any additional suggestions?

Thank you... Your response is highly appreciated.

Cheers,

Lelou

Dear Lelou,

This is what the BRC norm says:

"Where a product is designed to enable a claim to be made to satisfy a consumer group (e.g. a nutritional claim, ‘free from’, reduced sugar), the company shall ensure that the product formulation and production process is fully validated to meet the stated claim. "

So, you don't need to look too far, however there is some work to do. You need to exclude any contamination and presence of substances of animal origin in your product, production process and supply chain.

Kind regards,

Gerard Heerkens

Yes, your idea of inhouse validation (along with a statement from the tetra pak manufacturer) will button this up nicely