Updating BRC/IOP situation

Simon,
Can you update us about the situation of BRC/IOP certification today. Is the policy and time table mentioned on your web (underneath) by the retailers still valid ? How many packaging companies are certified ?
I think this is a very important information and we can feed in the situation in our countries.
Tks,
moshes
"The following retailers have stated that certification to the BRC/IoP Packaging Standard will be a requirement of supply in the future:

- Marks & Spencer (by end of 2002)
- Sainsbury's (by April 2003)
- Safeway (by April 2003)
- Co-op (by April 2003)
- Tesco (by April 2003)
- Waitrose (by October 2003) "

Hi Moshes,

I haven't seen any updated information on this but I will do my best to find it over the next few days. I have also asked another member of the discussion forum who may be able to help with this.

Keep you posted.

Regards,
Simon

Hi Moshes,
The BRC Standard is alive and very well. Our Certification Body Web site has listed the many companies in UK, USA, France, Germany, Sweden who have achieved certification so far by our organisation. Unfortunately no other CB has had the temerity to publish such a list, so it is very difficult to establish the total, but I would estimate it as in the region of 250 companies.

As well as all of the retailers you have mentioned as far as I can establish by talking to clients, the Dutch Food Agency (CBL), Nestle, Unilever, Kraft Jacobs Suchard, Perseco (for MacDonalds) and the major UK food processors are making adoption of the BRC mandatory to all of their packaging suppliers globally. Because of the delay in the accreditation process, most of the dates have gone out to the end of this year

We are also receiving enquiries from all over the world and our overseas offices are establishing teams to deal with this demand which is currently enormous.
Hope this answers your request, if you need more info please contact me.
Brian Fowler

Ah Brian what a pleasant surprise :). Thanks for the update.

Official and freely available information on The BRC/IoP Packaging Standard is nonexistent and it's a disgrace. You may find some useful information here:

http://www.brc.org.u...KAGING STANDARD

or maybe not. Sorry about that but it's now 19 months since the standard was launched and it's scandalous that this space is still empty. I did ask them if they would provide a link to saferpak as a service but I didn't even get a reply.

Regards,
Simon

Brian and Simon,
Appreciate the very useful information.
Thanks,
moshes

To add to Brian's comments one of our UK manufacturing customers has a sister company in Germany, their German packaging supplier does not have the BRC/IOP standard. Our customer is in process of enforcing their BRC/IOP purchasing policy - more interestingly they are putting their money where their mouth is and are prepared to pay more for their packaging.

Our customer does not wish to expand it's supplier base so they have approached us, a UK based supplier, to supply for export.

Certification schemes often quote that they give you competitive advantage - this could be the first time I have genuinely seen it in action!!