Acquisitions and Audit status
Hi, What happens when Company A is BRC A&B certified and is acquired by company B which is BRC Food certified?
Company A re-audit date is sooner than Company B.
Can Company A just not recertify and wait for Company B's audit to get included?
Is Company A moving to Company B's site?
If not, the certification is based on the audit of a site, so you'd carry on with two separate certificates, audit cycles etc. This is far from unusual - lots of groups with multiple sites that are certified separately.
I also know of at least one example of a site having separate BRC Food and BRC A&B audits at the same facility, due to the constraints of the former with regard to traded goods - this section applies to products "stored at the site's facilities", so for example if you're an agent/broker who uses 3rd party warehousing (or potentially no warehousing, if you only buy/sell on a back-to-back basis) then you'd not be able to include this within the scope of Food certification.
Even if Company A does relocate to Company B's facilities, it may therefore be necessary to continue running two standards with two separate audits. Theoretically it is possible to have a combined audit that covers both standards at once, but you need to get very lucky with availability of an auditor with the right category/ies and standards. IMEX this is remarkably difficult to achieve!
If you do relocate and can combine into one Food certification, I'd recommend talking it through with the relevant CB first just to be sure...
Thanks.
Yes, Eventually Comapny A will move to Company B's site.
Currently, 3rd party warehousing is used but in future all warehousing will be brought in-house.
In that case, you should be able to combine them under a single Food certification once you're out of the external warehousing. This might leave a gap where traded goods aren't certified within the Food scope, but your A&B has also ceased to apply as you're on a different site. I'd have a chat with the CBs to discuss options to best manage this, whether that be a relocation of your A&B or an extension of the scope of the Food to include the Traded Goods element.