36 replies to this topic

[Charles.C]

Dear Cathy,

Recently two supermarket retail chains have decided to not accept BRC.

Interesting. Do you mean they will still accept SQFxxxx ?If not, do you know which standard is required by them ?

Actually, if you compare the BRC/SQF texts, there is considerable difference in presentation (last time I looked SQF was almost intelligible although some items debatably defined [IMO ] )

Rgds / Charles.C

[Cathy]

Yes - the preference here seem to be growing toward SQF (2000). I agree - it is poorly written. Some improvements have come about - version 6 came around in August this year....but BRC ius still much better organized. The content is quite similar, so it doesn't matter too much to me which one a company chooses - I just hope the redundant audits stop or at least slow down.

[Charles.C]

Dear Cathy,

I agree - it is poorly written.

My English must be slipping again. I thought SQF >> more intelligible to read than BRC.
I personally find BRC becoming ever more confusing. An example is the "risk assessments" appearing everywhere. I suspect maximising back coverage has become an (increasingly) primary objective.

Or perhaps you are just lucky to possess good intuitional abilities and I am the other way round.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Simon]

An example is the "risk assessments" appearing everywhere. I suspect maximising back coverage has become an (increasingly) primary objective.

I kind of like the idea of risk assessments, makes one think about it a bit more.

JMHO.

Regards,
Simon

[JSFB]

My experiance of BRC leads me to belive that it is a deeply flawed audit that becomes more pointless by the day. I regularly conduct food safety audits across the uk and europe and when i am presented with a grade A BRC cert from i company i become very worried. BRC seems to have created a culture of fantastic quality systems siting in a filling cabinet in a technical office which has taken takes the focus away from what actually happens in and around the product protection zones. I have lost count of the numbers of suppliers i have had to drag back into the factory and away from the paperwork. 10 hours worth of paperwork auditng and 1 in the factory is a joke. There are huge gaps in the current standard. For me the AIB standard has helped several of our site significantly improve to levels far advanced as where we would ever be with BRC. I belive the majority of the retailers have lost faith in BRC.

[Charles.C]

Dear JSFB,

I agree with yr philosophy however it is probably inevitable that any system containing an implicit priority to defend against potential litigations will demand lots of paperwork. The old days surely had too little, often resulting in a cowboy type scenario – “have a building, hv workers and raw material, will produce”. I personally disapprove of BRC’s seeming decision to confuse people by moving away from the more explicit style of its earlier versions (towards the demon ISO).
I deduce AIB have chosen a more “practical” route from looking at some typical requirements. No doubt some would say it’s too easy ??. Must admit I don’t know where the balance should best be set however no standard should create so many bewildered queries as seem to hv occurred here recently. Can add ISO 22000 to that also.
Nonetheless, regardless of the standards involved, it still comes down to people IMO. Just like football.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Simon]

My experiance of BRC leads me to belive that it is a deeply flawed audit that becomes more pointless by the day. I regularly conduct food safety audits across the uk and europe and when i am presented with a grade A BRC cert from i company i become very worried. BRC seems to have created a culture of fantastic quality systems siting in a filling cabinet in a technical office which has taken takes the focus away from what actually happens in and around the product protection zones. I have lost count of the numbers of suppliers i have had to drag back into the factory and away from the paperwork. 10 hours worth of paperwork auditng and 1 in the factory is a joke. There are huge gaps in the current standard. For me the AIB standard has helped several of our site significantly improve to levels far advanced as where we would ever be with BRC. I belive the majority of the retailers have lost faith in BRC.

I don't agree the BRC standard is fundamentally flawed; it's the standard of auditors that's the problem. The documentation must be in place and that needs to be checked by the auditor as well as the practical application of the policies and procedures. Missing either is not correct and if you look through the BRC standard much of it cannot be verified without spending a good deal of time in the factory. Even with an accredited standard such as the BRC the variation in auditor quality is vast and as the standard has proliferated across countries this has got worse.

There are clear laws in football and professional referees are well trained and experienced yet they get it wrong time and time again. Does that mean we should rewrite the rules of football or work on improving the standard of refereeing?

[JSFB]

Hi Simon

I would agree about the standard of the auditors to a certain extent however they are only doing what they have been trained to do and following the checklists given to them. I think a lot more work is needed on the checklist with a much greater focus on what is actually happenning in production areas, for me BRC just does not do this, AIB for example spend 3 days taking your site to pieces.The training and calibration of BRC auditors also needs a complete overhaul, until these issues are resolved i think the retailers and manufactures will continue to lose confidence in the system which should benifit us all. Food safety auditors making mistakes can have life or death results, football is just a game. So yes we do need to re write the rules and improve the standard of auditing.

[Simon]

I would agree about the standard of the auditors to a certain extent however they are only doing what they have been trained to do and following the checklists given to them. I think a lot more work is needed on the checklist with a much greater focus on what is actually happening in production areas, for me BRC just does not do this, AIB for example spend 3 days taking your site to pieces. The training and calibration of BRC auditors also needs a complete overhaul, until these issues are resolved I think the retailers and manufactures will continue to lose confidence in the system which should benefit us all.

Food safety auditors making mistakes can have life or death results, football is just a game. So yes we do need to re write the rules and improve the standard of auditing.

I think we sort of agree on the basic principles (in a roundabout way). There is no doubt there is a mammoth amount of paperwork to be verified during a BRC audit. Every clause has to be audited at every audit, but rather than checking written procedures in an office much of it can be verified in the workplace and that’s down to the preference of the auditor. Which route he/she chooses to take makes the difference between a good and bad audit. Maybe more days are required to get through it all in a meaningful way. But then that increases cost. I know BRC auditors and they have told me there is a horrendous amount of work during and after the audit and barely enough time allocated / paid for by the certification bodies.

It’s an interesting topic and we all have the same goal – thanks JSFB.

Regards,
Simon

[Charles.C]

Food safety auditors making mistakes can have life or death results, football is just a game.

I appreciate that there is an element of "apples and oranges" in my previous off-side however football can have its serious aspects too -
http://www.football-...r_mourinho.html

Back on topic, I enjoyed yr comments JSFB. I think that the auditing companies may not be doing that badly though. The auditors is another thing.

Rgds / Charles.C

[JSFB]

Hi Simon think your right we do seem to be in agreement in a round about way. Charles do enjoy the football references, didnt mean to come across so serious, i usually use car ones - middle of the road and all that Enjoying the chat with you guys.

Regards

James

[Jarve]

We've just gone through Version 5 audit with the most well known auditing company and we had to totally re-arrange production on the second day in order to let the auditor see production of different categories of foods we manufacture otherwise he was goingto exclude them from the scope of the audit which would have excluded about one third of our business. In all we worked it out that we produce ten different categories of foods out of this site it would take at least two weeks to see everything being made correctly. We were also warned that come 2011 the audits could well become unannounced and we have already taken the decision that at that point we are not bothering with accreditation any more because our customers do unannounced anyway even though we have BRC. Its much more of a money making scheme now - look how many companies are achieving grade C and falling into the six monthly audit review.