Adding new building to BRCGS Issue 6 Certification

Hello all,

The company that I work in is considering adding a new building that has 2 new machines to our BRCGS issue 6 certification for our next audit. Currently these 2 machines are still under trial, so we do not have production records for these machines yet.

Since it is my first time facing such an issue, I have few questions and your help is much appreciated.

1- Should the machines be running during the audit, even thought we do not have production records for them? 

2- If they should be working normally during the audit should the products of these 2 machines be put on hold as they are not BRCGS certified yes? 

3- what are the steps that we can follow to avoid getting nonconformities regarding this issue?

Thank you in advance,

This is not an issue.

You just need to contact your CB and explain what you are doing, that you've added a new building, new machines and that it's all under trials right now.

I do not believe you will have to HOLD product - however if you are shipping this product to customers that have been informed your company/system is BRC, you may need to inform your customers that these products will not be included under your BRC Scope until your next BRC Audit is conducted and the new certificate is issued.

In years past when one of our SQF clients did the same thing, we would contact the CB and about 50% of the time an Auditor would be assigned to conduct an inspection so that the new food products could be under the scope prior to the next Certification audit.

You also could make an irregular (special, or whatever) short internal audit on the Clause 4.6.2:

 

Newly installed equipment shall be properly specified before purchase. New equipment shall be tested and commissioned prior to use and a maintenance and cleaning programme established.