Are Green Coffee Beans considered food?
Hello,
I am stumped with a question, are green coffee beans considered food and would would a storage warehouse require a BRC Certification to store only green coffee beans?
Any clarification would be greatly appreciated :)
Hi, welcome to the forum! Yes, coffee beans are considered food regardless they're not actually supposed to be consumed. Same like, for instance, raw meat: it's not consumed raw, but it's food, isn't it? RE: type of certification you're supposed to have - let's see what our warehouse experts say.
Hi Olenazh, thanks for the welcome and for the response. I agree with you, it should be considered food. They are considering getting the BRC for Storage and Distribution since they are only storing the beans. They want to know if it is worth going for the BRC for Storage and Distribution if they are only storing coffee beans for only one client.
Hi, welcome to the forum! Yes, coffee beans are considered food regardless they're not actually supposed to be consumed. Same like, for instance, raw meat: it's not consumed raw, but it's food, isn't it? RE: type of certification you're supposed to have - let's see what our warehouse experts say.
it depends on what you mean by "requirement" There is no legal obligation to be BRC certified for anything. If you are BRC certified and using a warehouse as a third party service provider, they would have to be approved and monitored by you. Certainly, a GFSI certification is helpful for this, but probably not required.
Required to be BRC certified - well that really is up to your company.
If your customer is requiring your comoany to be BRC, then you may need to do that, however if you have an optìon of not going that route then I would stick with a standard FSMS etc.
Not sure where the OP is based, but if it is useful as a reference point, for EU/UK purposes "food" is defined in Article 2 of Regulation (EC) 178/2002:
For the purposes of this Regulation, "food" (or "foodstuff") means any substance or product, whether processed, partially processed or unprocessed, intended to be, or reasonably expected to be ingested by humans.
"Food" includes drink, chewing gum and any substance, including water, intentionally incorporated into the food during its manufacture, preparation or treatment. It includes water after the point of compliance as defined in Article 6 of Directive 98/83/EC and without prejudice to the requirements of Directives 80/778/EEC and 98/83/EC.
Green coffee beans therefore definitely would be food.
BRC is unlikely to be legally mandatory, although it may be a specific customer requirement. Again depending on where you are in the world, there may be a local regulatory obligation to be registered for handling/storing foodstuffs.