Customer audit as internal audit?

Hello everyone,

I work in a small company and I am the only person in the Food Safety/Quality department. I would like to clarify:

• Can we use a customer audit as part of our internal audit program under SQF if the audit covers all the system's requirements?

• Do we need any official documents from the customer auditor (such as an internal audit training certificate, etc), or is it sufficient to record their name, company, date, scope, and findings?

Thank you for your advice!

You need your own Internal Auditing program.

No, I don't think so. 

You need to have trained personnel do the internal audits. They should audit areas that they are not directly responsible for. Kind of along the 'extra pair of eyes' mindset of looking at areas.

• Can we use a customer audit as part of our internal audit program under SQF if the audit covers all the system's requirements?

No.  I'd be surprised if a customer audited you to every aspect of the SQF scope, but even if they did it does not meet the requirement for you to self audit yourself under 2.5.4.

• Do we need any official documents from the customer auditor (such as an internal audit training certificate, etc), or is it sufficient to record their name, company, date, scope, and findings?

In all companies I've worked for, we record EXTERNAL audits (customer and the such) under our CAPA trackers.  We list each external finding independently of our internal findings on the list, and still go through the normal process of investigation and corrective action where merited.