21 replies to this topic

[onshails25]

Hi there, 

 

Just looking to see if anyone here has experience appealing major nonconformances against the BRCGS standard? Our latest audit we had 3 minors, and one major. We feel that a B grade doesn't reflect our program (AA, A+ in previous audits), and that the major should have been a minor. 

 

We are producing a high risk product, and the situation of the major caused us to cancel production. However, we followed all procedures, and there was no potential food safety risk as the product was not produced. The definition of a major being;

 

" Major: where there is a substantial failure to meet the requirements of a 'statement of intent' or any clause of the Standard or a situation is identified which would, on the basis of objective evidence, raise significant doubt as to the conformity of the product being supplied "

 

However, we have objective evidence (0 complaints, monitoring reports, product micros, environmental swabs, etc.) to the consistent control on product safety and conformity, and the auditor even noted that within the non-conformance report. 

 

Does anyone have any experience in a similar situation that can speak to the appeal process and the chances of a good outcome? 

[SQFconsultant]

Was there an attempt made to correct this from a major to a minor prior to the Auditor departing your facility???

 

You can appeal a finding, however that is where it should start -- the step that should be made before it has to get into filing an appearl.

[G M]

...

We are producing a high risk product, and the situation of the major caused us to cancel production. However, we followed all procedures, and there was no potential food safety risk as the product was not produced. ...

 

The vagueness of the situation is a bit confusing, but I'm interpreting this as the auditor observed something which would compromise product safety, and gave a major non-conformance in the report.

 

Had your processes already identified this hazard and you were in the process of correcting it when the auditor observed it; or did you take corrective actions only after the auditor called it out?

[onshails25]

Was there an attempt made to correct this from a major to a minor prior to the Auditor departing your facility???

 

You can appeal a finding, however that is where it should start -- the step that should be made before it has to get into filing an appearl.

Yes, we had great discussion with the auditor, but unfortunately could not come to an agreement. 

[Ishau]

Can you share more about the context of the non-conformance that was raised?
This is critical to the advice you are seeking because a major can be raised for either doubt for the conforming nature of the product OR because there was a substantial failure to meet a clause requirement.

For example, say you did not have a procedure in place to manage the movement of static equipment... in the grand scheme of things that is a pretty minor issue because you haven't moved any static equipment and have no plans too, however because that is all the clause requires not having such a procedure automatically defaults to a major because you substantially failed to meet clause requirements.

I appreciate you may not want to give too much away, but a little more context would be great.

[onshails25]

The vagueness of the situation is a bit confusing, but I'm interpreting this as the auditor observed something which would compromise product safety, and gave a major non-conformance in the report.

 

Had your processes already identified this hazard and you were in the process of correcting it when the auditor observed it; or did you take corrective actions only after the auditor called it out?

 Yes, the auditor observed something that could affect product safety had we have been producing, but production was cancelled before there was a chance of that. 

 

This situation was not present before the audit, which is where I stated we have evidence to prove that. The situation happened and was identified on the first day of the audit, by QA personnel while the auditor was present, on a non-production day. The auditor was able to observe us take the proper corrective and preventive actions immediately, and was present when a follow up inspection was done for verification. It was agreed by the auditor that the follow up showed we had addressed the issue. During pre-operational inspections the following day, observation showed the problem was no longer there. However, as things got moving during set up for production, the problem seemed to come back. As soon as QA personnel observed this, they cancelled production before any product had actually gone through the process. 

 

The argument of why it stayed a major ended up being that the auditor personally had no way to tell that if had they not been there, that we would have cancelled production; which I understand. The major was under clause 4.11.1

 

I guess I am just trying to see if my thought process would stand. Our team believes the situation would be better fit as a minor in a different clause, possibly a minor in 3.7 corrective and preventive actions (since our root cause investigation and preventive action ended up being incorrect) or 4.4 building fabric. 

[onshails25]

Can you share more about the context of the non-conformance that was raised?
This is critical to the advice you are seeking because a major can be raised for either doubt for the conforming nature of the product OR because there was a substantial failure to meet a clause requirement.

For example, say you did not have a procedure in place to manage the movement of static equipment... in the grand scheme of things that is a pretty minor issue because you haven't moved any static equipment and have no plans too, however because that is all the clause requires not having such a procedure automatically defaults to a major because you substantially failed to meet clause requirements.

I appreciate you may not want to give too much away, but a little more context would be great.

The non conformance was raised against 4.11.1.  It was clear the facility was kept in hygienic condition in all other areas, and the problem area prior to it happening. The situation first happened and was identified by QA during the audit, and corrective action procedures were followed. There is loads of objective evidence to confirm this was not an area of concern prior to this day, which the auditor had reviewed and agreed with, and stated within the non-conformance report.

 

I can agree, in that moment we were not meeting the clause requirement, but I am not sure what else we could have done to meet that requirement considering the situation was an isolated incident (again, evidence to confirm this) and proper corrective action procedures were taken to avoid compromising product safety. The CAPA was completed, and verified effective which the auditor was present for.

Edited by onshails25, 25 September 2025 - 05:35 PM.

[GMO]

It's tough when stuff like this happens.  And there are commercial consequences to it, I'm not naïve.  But the one push back I'd have is (while it's difficult to know the issue), it was the QA that raised the alarm.

 

If you take a step back out of audit land and think about what might have happened on a normal day.  Perhaps the QA wasn't in that area that day because it wasn't an audit day.  Maybe they were doing a perimeter internal audit instead.  Didn't see it.

 

So, considering they presumably don't work in that area all the time, but the people who work there do, why was it them that raised the alarm and not the operations team?

 

The fact it's just happened in front of a QA and external auditor is probably sending their spidey senses running for "it's not just happened".

 

Look, it's not my battle and I certainly hate to see Technical people put through the wringer for external audit results, which is unjust in so many ways.  But whatever you do, even if you get this talked down to a minor, you need to answer the question on why it was the QA who stepped in and not production.  Hey maybe I'm being unfair and they just got there first and whatever it was really did just happen to occur at that very second but I think it's a question worth asking.

[onshails25]

It's tough when stuff like this happens.  And there are commercial consequences to it, I'm not naïve.  But the one push back I'd have is (while it's difficult to know the issue), it was the QA that raised the alarm.

 

If you take a step back out of audit land and think about what might have happened on a normal day.  Perhaps the QA wasn't in that area that day because it wasn't an audit day.  Maybe they were doing a perimeter internal audit instead.  Didn't see it.

 

So, considering they presumably don't work in that area all the time, but the people who work there do, why was it them that raised the alarm and not the operations team?

 

The fact it's just happened in front of a QA and external auditor is probably sending their spidey senses running for "it's not just happened".

 

Look, it's not my battle and I certainly hate to see Technical people put through the wringer for external audit results, which is unjust in so many ways.  But whatever you do, even if you get this talked down to a minor, you need to answer the question on why it was the QA who stepped in and not production.  Hey maybe I'm being unfair and they just got there first and whatever it was really did just happen to occur at that very second but I think it's a question worth asking.

That is a great point, thank you for that outside point of view. It is certainly hard as an auditor to see the whole picture when your audit is essentially just a snapshot. 

 

There had been no processing for about a week prior to the audit (due to the nature of the raw material season) so that's why those employees weren't able to identify the issue. I (QA) was the first person on site that day with the auditor and floor QC tagging along. Of course I myself am very confident had it not been me, that my team would have reported it either way, but you are right there is no telling from an outside POV. 

 

At the end of the day this has provided us with lots of learning and ways to improve, just a very unfortunate circumstance   We may have to agree to disagree.

[Tony-C]

Hi onshails25,

 

It does seem a bit harsh but without knowing what exactly has gone on, it is what it is. It would appear that the auditor concluded that there was a substantial failure to meet the requirements of a ‘statement of intent’ and that is why it has been graded as a major, although it could in theory have led to your certificate being withdrawn. See the details below.

 

2.3.1 Non-conformities

There are three levels of non-conformity:

• Critical Where there is a critical failure to comply with a food safety or legal issue.

• Major Where there is a substantial failure to meet the requirements of a ‘statement of intent’ or any clause of the Standard, or a situation is identified which would, on the basis of available objective evidence, raise significant doubt as to the conformity of the product being supplied.

• Minor Where a clause has not been fully met but, on the basis of objective evidence, the conformity of the product is not in doubt.

 

Fundamental requirements

‘These requirements relate to systems that are crucial to the establishment and operation of an effective food quality and safety operation.’

‘Failure to comply with the statement of intent of a fundamental requirement (i.e. a major non-conformity) leads to non-certification at an initial audit or withdrawal of certification at subsequent audits. This will require a further full audit to establish demonstrable evidence of compliance.’

 

BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 9 Section 4.11 Housekeeping and hygiene: Fundamental requirement:

Housekeeping and cleaning systems shall be in place which ensure appropriate standards of hygiene are maintained at all times and the risk of product contamination is minimised.

 

Members might be interest to know that Clause 4.11.1 The premises and equipment shall be maintained in a clean and hygienic condition crops up quite a lot as an NC in certification audits, it was reported as the top non-conformity in 2024-2025 by BRCGS in their annual report with 4,715 NC's raised. I have posted statistics from the past few years in this topic: BRCGS Food Standard Top 10 Certification Audit Non-Conformances

 

You could appeal (see 6.5 Appeals) or write to the certification body explain your thoughts and ask for further clarity on the non-conformance and what their expectations were but it sounds to me like you should focus your energy on making sure it doesn’t happen again rather dwelling on what has happened.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[GMO]

That is a great point, thank you for that outside point of view. It is certainly hard as an auditor to see the whole picture when your audit is essentially just a snapshot. 

 

There had been no processing for about a week prior to the audit (due to the nature of the raw material season) so that's why those employees weren't able to identify the issue. I (QA) was the first person on site that day with the auditor and floor QC tagging along. Of course I myself am very confident had it not been me, that my team would have reported it either way, but you are right there is no telling from an outside POV. 

 

At the end of the day this has provided us with lots of learning and ways to improve, just a very unfortunate circumstance   We may have to agree to disagree.

 

I know it's super easy when you're not on the receiving end to treat this as a learning experience but perhaps it is.  

 

It is probably worth an appeal as a try, personally I'm always worried about annoying the auditor then meeting them again later but people on here always assure me people aren't that petty.  

 

If you can reveal any more and want us to try and pick any potential hole in the possible appeal either openly or by DM, I and I'm sure many others would help.

 

In my head I'm now imagining a building which is not being used for production currently but is about to start and there is something catastrophic like a huge roof leak going on.  This is where it's possible (albeit you nor the auditor could know) that if only Ops saw it, that they may have overlooked the issue as sorting it would have cost them production time.  The auditor may also be disbelieving (as am I a little to be honest) that no ops person would have been in if production was imminent.

 

It's one of the ways I actually pretty much hate external audits now.  Why does the score matter so much?  Well I know why but I don't if that makes sense.  What we're doing here is making safe food or not making safe food etc.  But out of this incident, if you want something as part of your CAPA I would focus on if everyone would do the same and how you prep to use areas or lines which have been down.

 

Whatever you do if it starts looking like the score will stand and you have to communicate that score to customers, I'll get ahead of that communication so you can explain (more fully) the dispute and what happened.

 

I once had a situation in the UK where we had a public recall for what I thought was a BS reason.  The customer pulled it without telling us (we were still in discussions I thought) and the first I knew was the notification on the food standards agency website.  I was in such a foul mood.  Got a call later from another customer.  Fortunately we had a good relationship because under our supply agreement I should have proactively called her.  Anyway I explained what had happened and she said "Oh we'd not have recalled it for that!" and was 100% fine about it all.

 

So while the score may not be what you want, you might find that you're on some "naughty list" table for a year but the people who really matter at your customers will understand more than you think.

[onshails25]

I know it's super easy when you're not on the receiving end to treat this as a learning experience but perhaps it is.  

 

It is probably worth an appeal as a try, personally I'm always worried about annoying the auditor then meeting them again later but people on here always assure me people aren't that petty.  

 

If you can reveal any more and want us to try and pick any potential hole in the possible appeal either openly or by DM, I and I'm sure many others would help.

 

In my head I'm now imagining a building which is not being used for production currently but is about to start and there is something catastrophic like a huge roof leak going on.  This is where it's possible (albeit you nor the auditor could know) that if only Ops saw it, that they may have overlooked the issue as sorting it would have cost them production time.  The auditor may also be disbelieving (as am I a little to be honest) that no ops person would have been in if production was imminent.

 

It's one of the ways I actually pretty much hate external audits now.  Why does the score matter so much?  Well I know why but I don't if that makes sense.  What we're doing here is making safe food or not making safe food etc.  But out of this incident, if you want something as part of your CAPA I would focus on if everyone would do the same and how you prep to use areas or lines which have been down.

 

Whatever you do if it starts looking like the score will stand and you have to communicate that score to customers, I'll get ahead of that communication so you can explain (more fully) the dispute and what happened.

 

I once had a situation in the UK where we had a public recall for what I thought was a BS reason.  The customer pulled it without telling us (we were still in discussions I thought) and the first I knew was the notification on the food standards agency website.  I was in such a foul mood.  Got a call later from another customer.  Fortunately we had a good relationship because under our supply agreement I should have proactively called her.  Anyway I explained what had happened and she said "Oh we'd not have recalled it for that!" and was 100% fine about it all.

 

So while the score may not be what you want, you might find that you're on some "naughty list" table for a year but the people who really matter at your customers will understand more than you think.

I definitely have no hard feelings towards the auditor, and understand their point of view. They even suggested that our certifying body may downgrade it and if not we have strong arguments to appeal. 

 

 

The score at the end of the day is still a passing grade, and does not change our audit process at all, and we are producing safe food, which is the goal. I don't believe the outcome of this will affect our business in any major way, and I am not overly concerned with keeping this grade. I was just curious to see others thoughts! 

 

Thanks for chiming in, I may send you a DM to pick your brain some more. 

[jfrey123]

I can agree, in that moment we were not meeting the clause requirement, but I am not sure what else we could have done to meet that requirement considering the situation was an isolated incident (again, evidence to confirm this) and proper corrective action procedures were taken to avoid compromising product safety. The CAPA was completed, and verified effective which the auditor was present for.

 

It's understandable that you haven't publicly discussed the true details of the finding, but those details are what the auditor has to work with.  To your point here, you were out of conformance and the auditor observed it, so depending on the severity it's valid to list it as a major even when it was well in control throughout the year.

 

As a speculative example, I'd expect to catch a major if my auditor had a rat run across their foot in a production room.  I might have a full year of inspections showing clean internal audits, pest control records reflecting there were zero rodent captures or other observed activity for the prior 12 months, so on and so forth.  But the auditor has to call it like they see it.  Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I've coined the phrase "The Luck of the Auditor":  without fail there's always one dumb thing that happens unexpectedly when I'm going on a walkthrough and it usually ends up as a finding.  I'll have a year of honestly clean weekly GMP checks, and on audit day that's the time someone forgets to take out their big stupid hoop earrings before putting their hairnet on.

[onshails25]

It's understandable that you haven't publicly discussed the true details of the finding, but those details are what the auditor has to work with.  To your point here, you were out of conformance and the auditor observed it, so depending on the severity it's valid to list it as a major even when it was well in control throughout the year.

 

As a speculative example, I'd expect to catch a major if my auditor had a rat run across their foot in a production room.  I might have a full year of inspections showing clean internal audits, pest control records reflecting there were zero rodent captures or other observed activity for the prior 12 months, so on and so forth.  But the auditor has to call it like they see it.  Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I've coined the phrase "The Luck of the Auditor":  without fail there's always one dumb thing that happens unexpectedly when I'm going on a walkthrough and it usually ends up as a finding.  I'll have a year of honestly clean weekly GMP checks, and on audit day that's the time someone forgets to take out their big stupid hoop earrings before putting their hairnet on.

Great point! I truly believe in the luck of the auditor, as every year it is something. We're just not used to it being a "major" something. The more I dig into the more I start to understand why the conformance level landed where it did, because it did happen, and that we cannot argue. Our auditor really seemed to consider downgrading it as we discussed more and more, which is I why I posted here to see others thoughts on appealing. It is hard to fully explain the situation without giving too much away, for confidentiality reasons of course. 

 

Thanks for your input! 

[GMO]

I definitely have no hard feelings towards the auditor, and understand their point of view. They even suggested that our certifying body may downgrade it and if not we have strong arguments to appeal. 

 

 

The score at the end of the day is still a passing grade, and does not change our audit process at all, and we are producing safe food, which is the goal. I don't believe the outcome of this will affect our business in any major way, and I am not overly concerned with keeping this grade. I was just curious to see others thoughts! 

 

Thanks for chiming in, I may send you a DM to pick your brain some more. 

 

Absolutely.  You'd be most welcome.

 

But one thing I would say, I was supporting a site once in a similar situation, and it's great you're already not hung up on this.  Irrespective of whether or not an appeal works, the issue still needs sorting.  This site I supported was over a month down the line and was still arguing about whether something was a major or not, rather than accepting it needed fixing.  It can become a barrier to resolving the problem.  I can tell from your messages that it's not where you are.  While that might not feel like a thing to feel good about right now, I assure you it is.  It shows a level of leadership maturity from yourself and your team which isn't all that common.  Kudos.

[Bo16]

I have issues with minor non-conformities given to us during the BRCGS audit when we addressed the problem, issued a deviation, did an investigation, assigned a root cause, did corrective and preventive actions, verified they worked and still got the NC because the initial issue did not conform to BRC.  Isn't that what deviations/investigations are for?  (Example, One internal audit was more than 12 months from the last annual audit, (started but not completed until the next month)    don't get me started on Annual, monthly, quarterly.....  definitions. 

[Tony-C]

Hi Bo16,

 

The standard requires that:

All activities that form a part of the site’s food safety and quality systems, including those relevant to food safety, authenticity, legality and quality, shall be covered at least once each year.

 

There is also a requirement for the frequency to be based on risk, so maybe the area should have been covered more than once a year as well.

 

I’d like to see the exact wording of the NC, it might be that the auditor gave you a minor rather than a major because of the corrective action that you had taken.

 

BTW realising you haven’t complied with your audit schedule then raising a CA before the audit is an old trick  that the auditor will have seen many times 

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

 

[GMO]

 

 

BTW realising you haven’t complied with your audit schedule then raising a CA before the audit is an old trick  that the auditor will have seen many times 

 

 

To be fair, yes and often accepted.  I suppose it depends on how well it was covered.  

 

So for example, an audit which was more than 12 months ago, RCA was a bit pants, said something like "auditor didn't prioritise audit over other work" then did the audit with no real preventive action.  Yeah, I'd be raising that.

 

If the RCA said that the root cause was insufficient auditors, you got the audit done as your corrective action then did more training of auditing and increased your team size with all audits being on time since.  Then a second root cause might be that you're planning audits for 12 month max intervals rather than 11 months for example so there is no flexibility if an unexpected issue happens, e.g. staff absence, so you then change your audit planning going forward...  Demonstrate that has been changed and that there's a prompt within another meeting for upcoming audits for example...

 

I think there are ways and ways of covering off a non con really robustly (like you mean it) or not so robustly (like you're just trying to prevent a non con).  It would be interesting on the findings of the RCA and the CAPA the OP chose.

[Bo16]

The finding was dry, audit not completed annually, no qualifiers/specifics.  More specifics: the audit was started on time, the auditor quit (immediately for health reasons), a back-up (trained) auditor was assigned, the audit was completed, 2 weeks late.  A new auditor was hired/trained.  There was no way to "know" the employee was going to leave.  As part of the CAPA, the audit schedule for all internal audits was then adjusted to the month before they were due for future audits. (The Certifying audit was 8 months later and we had no more audit delays) The Certifying body accepted all the corrective actions we had in our deviation as acceptable to correct and prevent the issue...  Why a NC?  Again, we cannot foresee everything.  That is what our CAPA/investigations/deviations are for.   I would worry more about companies that do not have a robust CAPA/deviation program, you never make mistakes?  When I worked in pharmaceutical preclinical studies, the pathologist always said, if you do a necropsy and there isn't any blood on the papers (before digital records), then did you really do it?  

We use these findings/deviations to make our plant better.

[Angela_S]

I know within the US, SQF appeals are usually pretty straight forward. Not sure if it's different in Canada but it's worth appealing. We've appealed minors in the past and have won.

[Tony-C]

The finding was dry, audit not completed annually, no qualifiers/specifics.  

 

That is not right, any NC should have full details of the non-compliance and the clause. This was one out of how many scheduled audits?

 

I know within the US, SQF appeals are usually pretty straight forward. Not sure if it's different in Canada but it's worth appealing. We've appealed minors in the past and have won.

 

This is BRCGS but the same applies, Bo16 if you feel strongly that an NC is wrong and have evidence to back up your grievance then by all means appeal.

 

Regards,

 

Tony

[GMO]

The finding was dry, audit not completed annually, no qualifiers/specifics.  More specifics: the audit was started on time, the auditor quit (immediately for health reasons), a back-up (trained) auditor was assigned, the audit was completed, 2 weeks late.  A new auditor was hired/trained.  There was no way to "know" the employee was going to leave.  As part of the CAPA, the audit schedule for all internal audits was then adjusted to the month before they were due for future audits. (The Certifying audit was 8 months later and we had no more audit delays) The Certifying body accepted all the corrective actions we had in our deviation as acceptable to correct and prevent the issue.

 

Then I agree.  I don't do GFSI audits, I do a few independent ones for businesses but if I'd seen all of that I'd not have raised a NC.

 

Fact is, some auditors are knobs.     Just like any occupation or walk of life.  But back in my day (imagine me in a rocking chair right now) auditing used to attract the kind of jobsworth idiots who would ping you for something being slightly out of the direct wording of the standard even if the intent was covered.  You know the old saying "those who can't, teach?"  There was a prevailing norm for a while for those who had not made it in the food industry because of their obnoxious character becoming auditors instead (no offence meant to anyone on here as these kind of people in my experience are now long retired.)

 

I don't find it so much anymore.  I do find stupid non cons being raised (definitely) but it tends to be due to auditor inexperience rather than sheer bloody mindedness.  It's not the idiot with a clipboard smiling as s/he finds something wrong because it makes them excited anymore.  (I'm only slightly joking.)

 

The one time, about 10-15 years ago when someone was threatening to raise a non con for something similar, I said to them, "what corrective or preventive action is it you're going to be wanting to see in our response which we've not done already?"  It was asked pleasantly but clearly in that we wanted to point out that we were going to be unable to answer the RCA and CAPA in a way that made sense as we'd already acted.  It was enough for him not to raise it fortunately for us because I think he could see a whole world of "we'd already done this..." which was going to make him look bad not us.