Tips on BRCGS Certification
Hi all,
Hope everyone is doing well! I am new to this forum. I work for a very young and very small Lupin product manufacturing company. We are HACCP certified. We are now looking into BRCGS certification.
Would anyone here have experience with how BRCGS certification works for first time applicants. As you all know, HACCP requirements is not as stringent as GFSI requirements. We have few Fundamentals in place. But not all. If we start implementing them now and looking at getting audited in November, how do they verify the effectiveness or what do they base their conformity or non conformity status on? I mean for most its an annual review. So between the time fundamentals/ PRPs are implemented and we ask for GFSI audit, there will not be any chance for an annual management review or any of the annual reviews. So how does the certification process work? Can anyone please advise. Thanks
Hi Gina,
:welcome:
Welcome to the IFSQN forums.
Based on requirements for new facilities a minimum of 3 months’ full compliance would be required prior to a certification audit. I would also arrange a Senior Management Review before the audit, you don’t need to wait a full year.
In preparation for your audit it is strongly recommended that the site is assessed against the BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 9, this can be in the form of a self-assessment as per Part III Audit protocol, 1.2 Self-assessment of compliance with the Standard
It is essential that Standard and any current position statements, all of which are available on the BRCGS website.
The Standard should be read and understood and a preliminary self-assessment * should be conducted by the company against the Standard to prepare for the audit. Any areas that need to be improved to meet the requirements should be addressed by the company to prevent a non-conformity being raised at the audit.
Alternatively, you could ask your proposed certification body to carry out a pre-assessment.
* BRCGS Auditor Checklist & Site Self-Assessment Tool is provided on the BRCGS Guidance Webpage can be used to carry out your self-assessment. I have attached a copy below.
f904a-auditor-checklist-site-self-assessment-tool-english-version 1.docx 236.03KB 17 downloads
Kind regards,
Tony
Tony's comments are quite relevant. You are probably pushing the timeline. You need to have all of the reviews / assessments completed even if the fundamentals are not a year old.
how do they verify the effectiveness or what do they base their conformity or non conformity status on? Do you meet the standard, that is it.
Get the checklist Tony linked. This IS the audit. In my opinion, should be your internal audit form. For every line of the checklist, ask yourself how am I going to prove to someone that we meet the criteria? (what policy, procedure, record, observation proves we are compliant). Complete the checklist, correct deficiencies, then do it again. and again.
I know this is probably a vague question. But would you know if there might be some PRPs that we can omit? We are classed Low Risk. We dont use any animal product.
Welcome gina0509,
Our company works in a similar space as yours and I have taken the company from HACCP to BRC (AA+ last year).
I agree with the advice above 100%, including that getting your system in place by November would be a very severe challenge.
You won't be able to skip entire PRP's* but there will be individual parts of the code that do not apply to your business. In my system, we acknowledge those parts of the standard and then demonstrate why they are not applicable. In some cases, this can be one sentence, while others require a risk assessment or another more involved demonstration as to why that part of the standard is not applicable.
*the only exception I can think of is if your company does not engage in traded goods, then you could skip section 9.