How to bring M&S Standard and BRCGS standard together?

hi ;)

a good risk assessment should help, 

Unfortunately I can`t share as M&S docs are confidential.. 

Hi, M&S are delights for changing their standards frequently.  I'm 2 years out of supply to them so I don't have sight of the current versions.

What I'd do though is use the BRCGS document as your frame work then look for the appropriate standards or parts of standard which align with that section from M&S.  The only additional audits I'd put in are one for your Quality Plan or whatever they call it, the one which is like HACCP but for Quality as that's a specific M&S requirement.  Also I'd put in a more in depth hygiene audit as a specific systems audit bringing in Listeria control if that's relevant to you.  This is again because they are both hot on and expert in those areas.  All of that probably means you will miss one or two but it will give you a very good start.  I agree that it's both stupid and a waste of time to audit them separately.  I wouldn't be tempted to think though that "M&S are tough so I'll just audit against that" as they can be surprising at what they miss out of their standards and the different focus.  

Again, this is from memory and without current knowledge.  Unfortunately I do know it's hard yards trying to bring them all together.  We were supplying all UK retailers from one site I worked in.  It is surprising how much a slight tweak in wording can change the meaning in a standard and I'm not always sure it is intentional from the authors.

Despite all of the above though, I'd allow at least double the amount of time for a combined audit vs. just internal auditing against BRCGS, mostly because I think the M&S standards are so wordy, it can take time to even pull out of them exactly what the requirements are.  But I've just thought of an idea on that.  While it's not fool proof, if you have copies you can copy and paste from for both BRC and M&S, copy both applicable sections into an AI tool and ask it to create some audit questions for you.  Will it guarantee you don't miss anything?   Nope but having done that for the ETI base code once for an ethical audit, it actually worked a bloody treat.