BRCGS 6.5.4 - Protective Clothing and Pocket Restrictions

Hello, I was wondering if someone could help to advise

We are looking at ordering new workwear for our employees.  Being located in the UK, the production areas can get cold.   We can easily find polo shirts and sweat shirts with no sewn in buttons & pockets etc.  However we would like to provide a warm jacket for employees to wear in colder months.  But we are struggling to find anything that doesn't have pockets.  Apart from installing heating (which will not happen in the short term) how can we manage this?  This will be in areas where direct handling of food contact packaging is happening.

Thank you 

Below is the extract from the BRCGS standard for reference: 

6.5.4 Protective clothing worn in production areas shall provide adequate coverage. Where there is handling of materials intended for direct contact with food or other hygiene-sensitive products, the clothing shall have no external pockets on the upper body garments or sewn on buttons. Changes of such clothing shall be available at all times as required. This requirement applies to an employee’s own clothing as well as to company-supplied protective clothing

Hi, We are BRC and we have fleeces jackets provided through our laundered work wear. They provide "Result R036X" Jackets.

Our fleeces have internal pockets stitched to the inside of the fabric, the clause states external pockets which are pockets sown to the outside of the garment are not allowed.

I hope this helps.

I'm US based, but in our cold sites we let the employees wear their own hoodies/jackets and we issue a lab coat type smock as the protective outerwear.  The smock is laundered and maintained professionally and has no pockets.  Couple of the sites have a uniform coat for going into the freezers, but those employees are restricted to storage areas only and it passes muster for all of our audits.

An easy fix would be to require that they wear the jackets underneath their usual protective clothing (smocks). We would allow personnel to wear jackets and beanies in the cold months, but the jacket had to fit underneath their smock and not have a hood, and the beanie had to be covered by a hairnet. And of course, they would have to be clean, just like their regular clothing worn underneath their smock.

You could also try finding jackets that have outer pockets with zippers and train staff on keeping outer pockets zipped at all times. But then you'd have to do a risk assessment. Would the zipper pull come off with time? Should it be made of metal then? Is it metal-detectable material? If they are company-provided coats, does the company need to provide laundering to ensure the jackets are clean? Are personnel allowed to wear their company coats outside? What risks could that introduce? Etc etc.

If they're regular pockets, you can instruct personnel that they may not keep anything in their coat pockets, but how would that be enforced and by whom? You could also have the pockets sewn shut, but that would be an additional cost.

Hi PanchoGR,

First post on the IFSQN forums! welcome to the action.

As per the jfrey123’s and ChristinaK’s posts, the normal solution is to wear the warmer clothing under the normal protective clothing.

Kind regards,

Tony