Choice of Standards for Certification
Hi,we just passed HACCP certification. We are exporting crude and refined coconut oil to the European market. We are uncertain for our next certification to be FSSC 22000 or BRC? Please advice, how do we choose between the two? Thank you!
Hi,we just passed HACCP certification. We are exporting crude and refined coconut oil to the European market. We are uncertain for our next certification to be FSSC 22000 or BRC? Please advice, how do we choose between the two? Thank you!
3 Major Implementation Factors (there are others) -
(1) A Priority is often based on what your Customer requires.
(2) fssc22000 is based on iso22000 which is "Generic". In contrast, the BRC Standard is relatively "Prescriptive".
(3) iso22000 is based on iso-haccp whereas BRC utilises Codex haccp. (Means that for the former, there will likely be some haccp re-learning involved).
Indeed customers will often require a certain accreditation & grade from there suppliers so worth checking that before you start. Whilst both FSSC 22000 and BRC are GFSI benchmarked and (generally) regarded as equivalent in their purpose, different parts of the world seem to favour one or the other. The UK for instance seems to largely favour BRC whereas SQF seems more prevalent across the pond and IFS in mainland Europe, from my observations at least.
BRC is preferred and well understood in the UK but other GFSI standards are accepted. I'm not personally a fan of oPRPs which is why I'm not a fan of ISO 22000, I've found it to be a very rare occasion a genuine oPRP can be identified but apart from that, talk to your customers, if they have no strong preferences, look at the standards to see which one you align to most closely now.
Personally though I like BRC, probably because I've "grown up" with it. Unlike Charles, I disagree it's prescriptive, there are many sections which allow you to comply or not comply as long as you've demonstrated through risk assessment there is no risk. Personally I find that a pragmatic approach.
The last bit of advice is it may be worth getting a few certification bodies to visit. This has a few benefits. You get to know more about them, ask them about the standard and their experience auditing it and even get some sneaky consultancy from them by asking them to talk to you about "the kind of things an audit against this standard would raise". I'd steer clear from CBs who do few audits against that standard because they are too likely to take an overly draconian approach (which an inexperienced auditor can do against any standard.)
Hello, it is not a technical decision, i.e, what the Technical people prefers as an approach, but definitively, ask your main client. I´ve seen several certified facilities that, although having a standard certified, SHALL change it to "the other one" just because that´s how the client contract was defined
best regards,
Leila