CoronaVirus affecting certification audit in 2020
Hi everyone,
The management of my company has raised a concern of rescheduling our next BRC audit. The appointed auditor is a foreigner. Her visa and travel can be cancelled if the CoronaVirus infection situation in her country become worse.
Have you encountered any Covid-19 impact of your audits lately? If so, what have you done?
Thanks in advance.
This poster had issues with IFS audits, but had been offered an extension on BRC via remote audit: https://www.ifsqn.co...-certification/
It might be worth checking with your certification body to see if they can offer anything similar?
Why not change the appointed auditor then? You can ask your CB perhaps?
We have an audit (only a SF/SF audit at feel mill operations) scheduled this coming week at two different facilities. March 17 & 19. We have also questioned if we should request rescheduling. Our Auditor is domestic but has traveled to 4 different states over the previous 4 weeks. This is about protecting our staff and employees to a potential carrier. We are trying to decide what the best option is at this time. Any (QUICK) suggestions?
Anyone who has this concern needs to reach out to your CB immediately. We cannot provide you worthwhile suggestions your CB will option as this is a unique event.
It is definitely worth monitoring closely so any discussion you have with your CB's I'm sure all members would appreciate the results of those discussions with the CBs.
BRC accepts inevitable postponements and suggests quick cooperation with our CB for several scenarios.
https://www.brcgs.co...by-coronavirus/
Our audit is scheduled for 24 March. Our auditor is local but not sure if he will be allowed by his CB to do the audit. I hope that BRC will grant an extension in these circumstances.
Hey everybody, it's worth remembering GFSI is not a legal requirement. It might be a customer requirement or a scheme requirement (e.g. "red tractor") so it's also worth talking to the people who ask you to have it. In the worst case scenario where if you couldn't get an extension (unlikely I feel), it should be possible to continue trading.
My sites have defined GFSI as "non business critical" at the moment and I actually agree. The challenge for us as food safety professionals is to ensure safe food irrespective of whether we have an external audit (but isn't that the challenge every single day?)
Stay calm.