The BRC Global Standard for Food Safety was born in 1998 to
ensure that
brand products are produced according to well-defined quality
standards and in compliance with minimum requirements.
It can be compared to a
specification that
binds qualified suppliers to the distribution company.
It is one of the food safety standards recognized by the
Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), an international initiative, whose main purpose is to strengthen and promote food safety throughout the supply chain.
Recently, the GFSI has managed to persuade a number of international retailers (such as
Carrefour, Tesco, Metro, Migros etc.) to accept the concept of equivalence and
interchangeability between the standards recognized by the GFSI, thus allowing to reduce the duplication of certificates of compliance against very similar standards.
The application of the
BRC is therefore a necessary
prerequisite in order to export one’s products, and is a recognized instrument to ensure the company's reliability.
The standard was developed by:
- British Retail Consortium, which represents the major British retailers such as Tesco Stores, Sainsbury's Supermarket, ASDA Stores, etc.
- UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service), Britain's national accreditation body, which recognizes the standard
CSQA is accredited by ACCREDIA for BRC Global Standard for Food Safety certification services.
Key points
The standard applies to
food processing and preparation companies and identifies the specific elements of a management system focused on the
quality and health safety of the products, which takes the
HACCP system as a reference for planning and implementing.
Key points are:
- adoption of good practices;
- adoption of a HACCP system;
- adoption of a documented quality management system;
- control of the standards for work environments, product, process and personnel;
- existence of appropriate specifications for:
- raw materials (including packaging materials),
- finished product, intermediate products / semi-finished products (where applicable),
- monitoring of suppliers,
- site location,
- the accumulation, collection and disposal of waste material,
- hygienic and staff organization standards,
- process control.
Benefits
The main benefit is that the Company can
expand the range of its customers. The international recognition of this Standard allows to meet the needs of British customers.
For companies that already apply a quality management system according to ISO 9001 or use the HACCP methodology, compliance with these standards is very easy, with the possibility of exploiting
synergies and common elements between the different standards.
All this results in a
reduction in the time and
cost required for audits.