12 replies to this topic

[ral491994]

Hi all, we are a smaller company. Another QA technician and I make the QA team. I wrote all of the procedures for the SQF system. I was wondering who should do the internal audit. Myself? Outside of QA, who isn't as familiar with the audit/food safety? What do your companies do that are small and just starting SQF? 

[The Food Scientist]

Have you done Internal Auditing training?

[olenazh]

You can train somebody else (e.g. Managerial or Supervisory personnel) on internal audit procedure and HACCP to do internal audits. That's what I did - and it was acceptable from the auditor side.

[SQFconsultant]

If you are talking about the audit/management review of the entire system, inputs, etc it is normally the SQF Practitioner and members of management.

 

Our current company is using the SQF Practitioner, the operations manager and the VP of sales to conduct the review.

 

For general internal audits it is normally not done by the same person for the department - however that doesn't always work out that way for small companies - for our food company (outside of our consulting business) we rotate managers and general line employees so that no one inspects their own area and all are trained on Internal Auditoring (it helps that we wrote an Internal Auditor training program.)

[ral491994]

Yes- i have been through internal audit training. Its good to know that i can train someone- I as the SQF practitioner. 

 

i need to get management more involved it sounds like in the audit. 

 

Thank you for your help! 

[mer1in]

Hi all, we are a smaller company. Another QA technician and I make the QA team. I wrote all of the procedures for the SQF system. I was wondering who should do the internal audit. Myself? Outside of QA, who isn't as familiar with the audit/food safety? What do your companies do that are small and just starting SQF?

Hello,
It's the same situation for us. We are a food microbiological lab comprising of 2 technicians & a manager. We are ISO 17025:2017 accredited. All 3 of us got internal audit training from an external accredited source & my manger audits the technical side & I audit the managerial side. We have been doing it for years & the external auditors accept the system.
The main objective being our systems are functioning well and in line with the ISO 17025.

[Spidey]

My facility has 4 employees total, it's the smallest facility our SQF auditor has ever visited/audited.  I am our SQF Practitioner, but I also double as head of R&D.  I perform all audits, which includes monthly GMP Audits and the annual internal audit of our entire SQF system.

[ral491994]

Kara- do they question you on this at all? 

[Spidey]

Kara- do they question you on this at all? 

 

Our first, and thus far only, SQF audit was last December.  At that time, they did not question this, though I could tell that our auditor wasn't keen on it.  I have a friend who worked here before me, fulfilling a similar job function, and the auditor suggested that in the future I have my friend come in and perform the annual internal audit.  I will likely continue to perform this audit because the system has changed quite a bit since my friend worked here.

[HaloQA]

Hi,

 

We are not SQF, but BRC (which also requires internal auditing), and when we got our fist certification, we were about 10-12 persons at the company.

The solution we found by then was to train one of the offices employees, since we were told that those working on creation and implementation of the QMS could not audit their own work. It worked for the audit.

This year the person left and we have no one that is able to audit (not even with training...), thus we hired a consultant from an external agency.

Just as info, but I would not recommend hiring an external one unless emergency, because it was really pricey. 

 

Good luck with the audits!

[Spidey]

Our first, and thus far only, SQF audit was last December.  At that time, they did not question this, though I could tell that our auditor wasn't keen on it.  I have a friend who worked here before me, fulfilling a similar job function, and the auditor suggested that in the future I have my friend come in and perform the annual internal audit.  I will likely continue to perform this audit because the system has changed quite a bit since my friend worked here.

 

I thought I would follow-up on this.  We just had our SQF audit for this year (and passed with a 98!).  The auditor did not have a problem with my being the only person performing monthly GMP audits and the annual internal audit.  Again, our facility is super small, 4 full-time employees, including me.

[ral491994]

Thank you for following up Spidey. Congrats on the amazing score!! 

 

 

I am starting to gather a team. I am trying to figure out how to function as an internal audit team. I am wondering if each teammate does the same audit based on the the schedule each month? This can be time consuming...  

[olenazh]

Hey ral; I'm having basically 3 HACCP team members doing internal audits on a monthly basis: say, X is auditing in May and October, Z is in August & December,  and most of audits are done by myself. Just make sure, you don't audit the part of system developed by yourself, that would not be right (I've had once a NC for this)