BRC Food Unannounced, has anyone ever turned away an auditor?

Hi, 

Has anyone ever turned away an auditor ? . 

This was our first unannounced audit and auditor turned up while I was on a few days off due to family commitments. (4 days before he turned up i have called the company to try block the week where they could not give me any information and they will try block the days if possible. which I have in writing) 

To cut long story short we are a very small team, the boss who is my standing, had a full agenda of important meetings which leaves less than a handful of permanent members of staff  available and who will not be able to assist an audit. Auditor turned up on my 2nd day being off and he was sent away, explaining the reasons. 

The company who does the audit is saying our current certificate is withdrawn, as it is counted as a failed audit under the unannounced scheme. There was no paperwork left by the auditor I am being told I have to wait 28 days to re-apply. 

I need advise on getting the site re audited ASAP as it is causing a multitude of issues with customers, will getting audited by another company make a difference? 

 

Dear gedida76

 

Thank you for sharing your experience. Although I do not know what really happened and how when your company sent the auditor away, in my opinion this situation shows quite a lack of flexibility on the part of the certification body. It is true that the companies must assign backup persons to take over tasks when the person responsible is off but also is true that this is not possible 100% for some tasks ¿ what company has a backup director or backup production ingineer or backup quality engineer ? Moreover having in mind that your company is a small one.

 

In my opinion, with a little sensible talk this situation would not have happened. One option could have been, go ahead with the audit and see what you can see and set another audit day for the things you could not see. Maybe in this case it is fair that the company pays for the extra cost of coming again. Maybe this is not an option for BRC organization but I think they should thing a big more about real life of companies.

 

By the way, could you share the name of the certification body?

Regards

Esther

You were only able to give them 4 days notice?

Not enough time to re set for an auditor that is already booked to do the audit.

Regardless of reason for absence the facility should have had a cover in place to handle this.

The BRC Standard clearly states the requirements. The only acceptable reason for black-out days (with minimum of 1 month notice) is if the plant is not operating. The CB has no authority to change the rules applying to the Standard. The CB MUST withdraw your certificate under the scheme rules or risk their approval to audit the scheme. Your lack of understanding of the scheme rules has led to your situation. You now have to arrange an audit within the time-frame required by the BRC. This is your responsibility - not the CB’s. If the CB cannot provide an Auditor with the correct category code within the required time-frame, you will have to find a CB that can. Good luck with that - most auditors are fully booked at least 3 months in advance. Check the contract with the CB too - you will find that you will have to pay the full cost of the audit you refused, because of insufficient cancellation notice.


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The BRC Standard clearly states the requirements. The only acceptable reason for black-out days (with minimum of 1 month notice) is if the plant is not operating. The CB has no authority to change the rules applying to the Standard. The CB MUST withdraw your certificate under the scheme rules or risk their approval to audit the scheme. Your lack of understanding of the scheme rules has led to your situation. You now have to arrange an audit within the time-frame required by the BRC. This is your responsibility - not the CB’s. If the CB cannot provide an Auditor with the correct category code within the required time-frame, you will have to find a CB that can. Good luck with that - most auditors are fully booked at least 3 months in advance. Check the contract with the CB too - you will find that you will have to pay the full cost of the audit you refused, because of insufficient cancellation notice.

 

I find your post particularly aggressive, nasty even, which is not what our members want, they are seeking help/assistance.

 

Please tell me where the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 7 clearly states the requirements you are prescribing?

Hi Tony-C,
I apologise - I certainly wasn’t intending my response to be aggressive. The CBs are often blamed for being inflexible, but they are the meat in the sandwich. They have to comply with the standard-owner’s protocols in order to be permitted to continue delivering the scheme to clients.
Having said that, none of the CBs are faultless in their delivery. They are required to meet KPIs by each of the Standard-owners. BRC is the best-explained and most prescriptive of the GFSI schemes and even has an interpretation guideline. As an auditor of all of the GFSI standards, I continue to be frustrated by the lack of understanding of requirements by certificate-holders.
My response was intended to explain that the client has to deal with the standard-owner to negotiate the best outcome. The CB usually does not have any wriggle room.
Again, I apologise if my response was perceived as brutal. I believe however that it was accurate.


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"During these 30 minutes, any relevant health and safety points, a brief opening meeting, and issue of any relevant personal protective equipment needs to be completed. If your site has any specific health and safety requirements, it will pay to notify SGS in advance of these, or provide a briefing document, to save time on the day.

If key members of the site are not available on the day, the site’s defined deputies should still be able to manage the audit process. The BRC protocol does not permit an audit to be cancelled because personnel are not available.

If access is not granted, then the BRC protocol stipulates that the site’s current certification can be suspended or withdrawn, so it is important that any personnel who may be at the nominated reporting point are briefed on how to communicate the arrival of the auditor."

I don't have access to the code, but the above is from;

www.sgs.com/en/news/2013/11/unannounced-audits-a-guide-to-the-new-brc-requirements

Hi Gedida, you are experiencing my worst nightmare and as you can see by the replies people are passionate about the subject. BRC makes sure that it is thoroughly imprinted on the many not the few so that for the very same reason you are having issues with now or if a key person drops dead, your product or customers are not at risk. It certainly helps stop businesses relying on 1 or 2 people to get BRC accredited which unfortunately i have seen on more than one occasion. It may be a hard lesson that you take on the chin now but to be honest its a wake up call for the whole business and you never know might get you some more support in the long run. Every cloud and all that...............

 

You pay a lot to go through the BRC audit and part of that is to give advice outside the audit when you are in dire straits, try and get some advice out of your auditors company.

 

Sorry there isn't much good news

 

Jimmy 

Well said Grumpy Jimmy - much more diplomatic than my response


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