Do we have to do GFSI certification? If yes how?
Many food, packaging and logistic/trucking/food storage companies are certified because of customer demand.
Having been a supplier to customers for years is no longer a free-pass from getting certified, as you have found out now.
I would suggest that you visit the respective GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) certification schemes BRC and FSSC 22000 to review the requirements of the certifications and then go from there.
You may want to enlist the services of a consultant to can conduct a gap analysis to determine what programs your company will need to put into place and normally an inspection (remote by your video or onsite) will be done to determine capital needs in order to be in compliance with the certification that you select.
For BRC go here:
For FSSC 22000 go here:
We no longer deal with BRC, so someone else might have a better link for you - it is not exactly a user friendly website for fast information.
for BRC please check out www.brcgs.com, the link provided by SQFconsultant is incorrect.
We are also a packaging supplier to many food customers and have been BRC certified since 2014. We were previously inspected against the AIB food packaging standard so the transition was not all that hard.
One thing I will caution you on is we had people telling use we won't get as many customer audits or questionnaires to answer once certified because customers will accept the certification as evidence that you have all the necessary processes and practices in place. This is NOT true. I still get questionnaires on a regular basis, some will even ask if we are GFSI certified and will then go on to ask all the same questions that should be answered by the fact that the certification exists. I will admit some will say you can stop the questionnaire with a positive response but not many.
Whether you "have to" have GFSI certification will be on a commercial basis; it's commom for customers to prefer that all of their suppliers are GFSI certified. I've recently started working for a relatively small and young company that doesn't have a GFSI benchmark accreditation, but we are looking to get BRC soon because that will open doors to larger customers and eventally retail.
If you do decide to invest in getting certified to a GFSI scheme to meet customer demands, I'd check which is the one best suited to the customer base. That said, I've found customers will usually accept FSSC 22000/IFS/SQF as equivalent to BRC, and generally there is a pattern in global location and which scheme is most popular.
If you are new to this area I'd strongly suggest hiring the guidance of a consutant as Glenn suggests, or have a look at the IFSQN GFSI Food Safety Manuel packages to guide you through the process:
You are certainly not required to implement such a program as long as you are willing to be bypassed for other companies that do have one.We are also primarily a food packaging manufacturer. We have been a certified facility (GMP based initially) for for about 12 years now. We had one customer, an extremely large national account, make the request for a food safety program, beginning with just a GMP based program, then required a full GFSI scheme which we transitioned to about 7 years ago. My question would be: What's the down side? You obviously already have some program in place right? The additional cost could certainly be recovered through increased business with much larger, higher volume customers as has been our case. It has contributed to considerable growth for us.