8 replies to this topic

[Yukonfarms123]

Hi my name is Sonja Coetzer I am a Compliance Officer at Yukon Farms in the Freestate South Africa

 

We plant vegetables (baby carrots, baby leeks, baby fennel, baby beetroot, rainbow carrots) for export

 

I need help with BRC 

Can somebody please help me I do not know how and where to start on the Senior Management Commitment

 

 

Greetings Sonja 

[zanorias]

Hello Sonja, and welcome to the forum

 

BRC Food Safety scheme?

Do you already have BRC or have a copy of the standard?

Do you have a copy of the interpretation guidelines?

Is there a specific clause within section 1 you are unsure about, or the whole thing in general?

 

If you don't have a copy of the interpretation guidelines I'd start there as they provide a good amount of information and guidance for each clause. For 1.1.2 (food safety culture) and 1.1.6 (confidential reporting) there are some recent and sturdy threads on these if you have a search about the forum.

[TracyS]

Hi Sonja

 

Welcome to the forum! I have certainly learned a lot since I joined a number of years ago - the advice in here got me through many a BRC audit, I can tell you!

I worked in the UK but have moved back to SA and live in the E. Cape. If I can help in any way, let me know.

 

Regards

[sharoncross]

Hi all,

 

I am hoping someone can help, we are currently working towards our first BRC audit and i am looking at the senior management commitment section and management meeting. I have constructed templates for the annual senior review meeting (clause 1.1.4) and a monthly management meeting (clause 1.1.5). I have listed managers from production, technical, purchasing, engineering and human resources for both the annual and monthly meeting. Some of the managers are asking if they really need to attend the monthly meetings.

 

Please can someone let me know who should attend the meeting.

 

thank you.

 

Sharon

[pHruit]

Hi Sharon,
To an extent this will depend on the structure of your company - the same title can cover a multitude of different areas at different businesses.

IMO the team should cover the areas of relevance for BRC at the most senior level, so it's difficult to see how to avoid bringing in the most senior manager/director for each of the areas you've listed, at least for the formal review (I'd also add in the chairman/MD/CEO if you can for that - really can help demonstrate commitment).

Whether the same contingent is required for the monthly meetings is a question that depends more on your setup and approach. As a senior manager I can appreciate the feeling of endless meetings getting in the way of the "actual" job (even though meetings are obviously part of that), and there is thus an argument that you may get better engagement if you can minimise the feeling that people are being dragged away from other things. We therefore take the approach of building BRC into other existing meetings, rather than creating specific ones (aside from the senior review for 1.1.4 that we do twice per year).
Is there an existing monthly management meeting? If so, can you just build a BRC/food safety section into this?
 

[sharoncross]

Hi  pHruit,

 

Thank you for replying.

We are a small company and most of our senior management are also directors. We don't currently have an existing structured monthly management meeting, so i am hoping to get some confirmation that they are required to attend.

 

Many thanks,

 

Sharon 

[pHruit]

Ah yes, I've been there and can empathise with that

1.1.5 doesn't specifically mandate a senior management meeting on a monthly basis, but rather that there will be a meeting program that allows issues to be brought to the attention of senior management.

How far away you can push this from the largely expected monthly senior team meeting will depend on how much you like arguing with BRC auditors, but there is perhaps theoretically some scope for an alternative approach.

Nonetheless the types of issues that BRC requires to be covered are such that it probably requires all of the functions you've listed.

It's not unusual for departments to want all things BRC-related to sit in technical (or indeed anywhere other than their own), but this isn't the reality of food manufacturing, and indeed the latest BRC standard very much recognises this through the new Food Safety Culture requirements. It's a battle that many of us have fought

[Brendan Triplett]

Most everything that I have read, or involved myself in, when it comes to these meetings reflects the importance of senior leadership 'buy-in.'  Part of requirements is showing that upper management is committed to supplying you with the time and resources to show the importance of the program so at the very least I would involve leadership from several of your departments.  Operations, manufacturing, safety and admin should be at the meeting at the very least.  It may seem like they don't need to be involved but it is important to get their input on building the system.  You have a good idea already of who should be there, it sounds like they just need to get on board to the dangers of a failed plan and how much it could cost their company if they don't build it correctly from the start.

[QAGB]

We had a management meeting every two weeks, mostly with middle management and supervisors on a cross-functional level. We always had at least one member of senior management attend these as well. This meeting discussed day-to-day happenings, trends, safety issues, upcoming audits, implementations, issues, etc. Once a quarter, we had a smaller meeting with just senior management and middle management as a review meeting to discuss the overall state of affairs. We followed the BRC format for this particular meeting, although we discussed more than just BRC-specific topics.

 

If your group is mostly comprised of directors, and you feel fairly ready for BRC, you may not need to have monthly management meetings. The frequency of these is primarily dictated by your needs, but is supposed to be done at least annually at a minimum. However, there is no reason to think your directors couldn't at least attend a couple times during a year. If they can't do that, something is wrong.