Food safety is a major concern across all countries, especially considering the increasing number of incidents that have led to product recall. Having uniform guidelines for assessment of hygiene and safety of helps organizations have a clear idea of how the operations should be run. Certifications for international standard, lets the consumers know that the company has consistently complied with global guidelines for food and beverage safety. This makes the product more attractive and achieve more sales. Meaning, acquiring a globally-recognized certification for food safety protects the consumers and also is extremely beneficial for the organization.
BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety is one such standard specifying details for food safety with Issue 9 being the latest version. Brand Reputation Compliance Global Standards (BRCGS) began in the UK but is an internationally accepted standard for food safety across sectors in the industry. This is a standard recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
The Standard focuses on:
- Encouraging the development of food safety culture
- Expanding the requirements for environmental monitoring to reflect the increasing importance of this technique
- Encouraging sites to further develop systems for security and food defence
- Adding clarity to the requirements for high-risk, high-care and ambient high-care production risk zones
- Providing greater clarity for sites manufacturing pet food
- Ensuring global applicability and bench-marking to the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)
- Features and Benefits
- Applicability
- Consulting Methodology
- Key Changes – ISSUE 9
BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety focuses on promoting a food safety culture in the companies along the food chain including that involved in pet food production. The emphasis is on maintaining food quality through the development of strong systems for food safety. The guidelines include details for organizational and managerial policies that are in line with safety and quality management.
The standard assesses the compliance with guidelines under Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) among other safety systems. The safety and hygiene environment of the facility will be evaluated along with the techniques used in the manufacturing of the product. This helps gain clarity on the requirements for high-risk areas that need proper attention.
The gains from this standard outweigh any costs incurred during the inspection and transformations process. The standard is an assurance of safety and quality of food products, instantly achieving the trust of the consumers. Some of the other benefits include:
- Protects your brand and consumer.
- Ensures your customers maintain confidence in your food safety programme and supply chain management.
- Accepted and specified by many retailers, manufacturers, ingredients companies, food service organisations and raw material processors worldwide as part of their supplier approval process.
- Demonstrate commitment from the top management to maintain quality & safety
- Establish a fool-proof food safety plan to manage risks
- Identify risk zones
- Get solutions to reduce accidents & hazards
- Minimize product recalls
- Streamline processes
- Reduce waste
- Increase good quality production
- Attract more clients
- Reach new markets
- Improve overall production & profits
Gaining BRC Global Standard for Food Safety certification gives your brand an internationally recognized mark of food quality, safety and responsibility.
This standard applies to food processors so that they can comply with the regulatory and industrial requirements for food safety and quality management systems. Manufacturers that produce and distribute their brands or owners of brands that co-manufacture products or enterprises that outsource some or all of the manufacturing services are all eligible for this standard. The standard is specifically aimed at protecting consumers and, thus, enhances the credibility of the company.
Consistency with other BRCGS Standards
We have amended some clauses to reflect the good practice learnt from other BRCGS Standards. For example, the term ‘integrity’ has been replaced by ‘authenticity’ to ensure consistent terminology throughout our Standards.
Product safety culture
The importance of product safety culture has gained renewed understanding since it was first incorporated into the Standard. To this end, and following feedback from the food industry, the working group reviewed the requirement and auditing of food safety culture. This resulted in a major revision of the requirement 1.1.2.
HACCP/Food Safety Plan
The working group felt that it was appropriate to update the wording for section 2 concerning the HACCP food safety plan to align the requirements with the 2020 revision of the General Principles of Food Hygiene.
Outsourced processing
An analysis indicated that a significant number of enquiries have related to the definition of outsourced processing. To focus on the issue, the Standard has updated the definition and some of the requirements.
Equipment
Since the publication of Issue 8 of the Standard, GFSI has published a new benchmark on the hygienic design of food buildings and equipment.
The working group completed a full review of the existing requirements for equipment and this resulted in a major revision of the requirements in section 4.6.
Animal primary conversion
In May 2021 BRCGS published a position statement on the additional requirements for sites which undertake animal primary conversion. The working group agreed that the content of the position statement should be incorporated into the Standard.
Additional modules
The following additional modules have been reviewed and updated for Issue 9.
Module 10 – Global G.A.P. Chain of Custody
Module 11 – Meat Supply Chain Assurance.
Module 13 – Meeting FSMA Requirements for Food (Previously known as Module 13: FSMA Preventive controls preparedness)
These modules are voluntary; however, where the company applies for certification to a module, all relevant requirements from the Standard (sections 1–9) must be fulfilled in addition to all the requirements outlined in the module, unless there are any justifiable exceptions (e.g. Section 9: Requirements for traded products only applies to sites that handles traded products).