BRCGS 3.5.3.3 - Supplier of Services Review
How do you review performance of Supplier of Services?
a) Food safety and quality: the incoming material must be of good quality and free from any food safety contaminant for each lot.
b) Accredited to a food safety or quality standard: supplier must maintain certification every year.
c) Number of food safety and quality non-conformances (since last review): if this history is known it can be used to determine the status.
d) Delivery: the incoming materials are delivered on as and when needed on timely manner.
e) Customer Service:
o When information’s are requested (e.g., material specification sheet etc.), they must be provided on timely manner.
o When there are non-conformances noted, the QA or customer service must be able to identify and correct the non-conformances in a timely manner.
o When there are changes occur to the incoming materials or management, they must be communicated to the QA immediately.
f) Price: the prices is rated according to comparable market pricing.
• When there is more than 4 food safety (minor which does not result in a recall and withdrawal) and 6 quality (minor which does not result in a recall and withdrawal) and 2 food defense related (minor which does not result in a recall and withdrawal) related non-conformances per year, the supplier will be evaluated as not acceptable.
• When there is a food fraud related non-conformance noted the supplier will be discontinued immediately.
• The receiving and QA Manager will replace with alternate or another suitable supplier as soon as possible.
• Records of approved suppliers and their evaluation are maintained by the purchasing and QA Manager.
hope this helps!
is there a service you are having trouble with? or is it documenting the review?
Pest control service - examples:
non conformities from internal and external audits.
response time to issues.
review service reports for issues, missing info
review of licenses, insurance, sds, etc to ensure they are keeping them up to date.
waste removal
internal and external audit findings
condition of containers
maintaining scheduled frequency.
response to extra services needed.
from the criteria you decide to evaluate each service provider, you could develop a scoring method and a risk rubric of some kind.
Yes, I am doing it for documenting the review.
As of now, we had signed contracts and self-assessment questionnaires from our Supplier of services . With new clause 3.5.3.3 , they asking for ongoing performance review.
Is there any kind of score card you have that you can share here?
Hi jkaurUC,
As per BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 9 clause 3.5.3.1 you should be approving and monitoring of suppliers of services.
For Clause 3.5.3.3 the ongoing performance review of suppliers of services, should be based on risk and defined performance criteria. This performance criteria should be defined in your contracts.
Services can be assessed as part of inspections and internal audits. Review can be conducted by records of feedback to the service supplier (such as email correspondence) or recording minutes of review meetings (which discuss performance and results of monitoring).
Examples of monitoring:
Cleaning – Swabs, Internal Audits/Inspections, Product Conformance
Pest Control – Review of Log of Pest Control Issues Reported Internally, Review of Pest Controller Documentation/Reports, Internal Audits/Inspections
Kind regards,
Tony
We had a non-conformance for this on our recent audit. For our corrective and preventive actions, we made a sheet to fill out for each service (if they don't provide a work order at the time) and review any work done at our monthly management meetings, and review quarterly with managers to make sure the work done was done properly (i.e. stayed fixed, no repeat, etc.).
How many times we should conduct supplier evaluation, is it okay if its just once a year?
Hi Utama
For Clause 3.5.3.3 the ongoing performance review of suppliers of services, should be based on risk and defined performance criteria. This performance criteria should be defined in your contracts.
BRCGS Guidance states: ‘The performance of the supplier should be formally reviewed at a frequency appropriate to the service.’ So, if the service is high risk such as contracted cleaning in a product area then I would expect more regular reviews, probably quarterly.
BRCGS Guidance also states: ‘For example, a cleaning service could be assessed as part of the internal audit process (section 3.4) and records maintained of feedback on performance to the cleaning company. Other services, such as pest control or laundry, may be reviewed with the supplier on a 6-monthly or annual basis and a record kept of the review (e.g. minutes of the meeting).’
A cleaning service in product areas would also be evaluated via inspections and environmental monitoring results.
As per the guidance for other services a minimum of every 12 months is acceptable but ensure that you have done a risk assessment (as BRCGS just loves them and requires them here, there and everywhere!).
Kind regards,
Tony