New version BRCGS Food Safety released

As of 01 August 2022 the new version BRCGS Food Safety has been launched. The so-called ‘Issue 9’ adds some important themes to the well-known BRCGS Food Safety standard. In the revision you will find a new strong emphasis on developing food safety culture and on building core competencies. Find out what it means for you as a food manufacturer or packaging business. .

The BRCGS Food Safety Standard is a leading global brand recognized by thousands of customers worldwide and was also the first Food Safety Standard to be benchmarked by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). It is designed to protect the consumer, and ensure that manufacturers and suppliers involved in the food chain meet their obligations. With the revision being launched, a few things will change during the certification trajectory. 

Food Safety culture

Culture is always at the heart of an organization and is felt at all level, from bottom to top and vice versa. So you can imagine that by creating a strong product safety culture, it can be assured that the employees and its contractors will always do the right thing. Even, or especially, when they are under pressure or when no-one is watching. The other way around, a poor product safety culture, can prevent organizations from reaching their goals or even worse it can create conditions in which safety incidents will occur. With all its consequences.

To prevent that from happening the new Issue 9 includes requirements for organizations to define activities that support improvement of food safety culture, with accompanying timescales and measurement methods. Behavior and culture at the working place are key. The visiting auditors role will therefore be to assess evidence of compliance with the set requirements. This means you will need to have a plan for the development, maintenance and improvement of a product safety culture at your organization in order to be compliant with the new BRCGS Food Safety Standard.

Core Competencies

At the foundation of a food safety culture are the critical core competencies of an organization. Even before an organization turns its attention to the attitudes and behavior at the working place, these basic requirements should be in order. These core competencies are crucial to provide a solid platform to create a safe, legal and high-quality food manufacturing, processing or packaging business. In the revised standard is set that the  recognition of the critical core competencies must be well organized, and receives continual focus and improvement. All in order to reduce non-conformities (NCs) against food standards across the industry.

Training Food Safety Issue 9

At Kiwa we can imagine these amendments can be a lot to take in. That is why BRCGS and its global network of approved training partners have developed new training courses for Food Safety Issue 9. There are conversion courses for sites, and full Issue 9 training for those who are completely new to the Standard. We offer remote training courses at the following data:

• 17^th of October 2022
• 11^th of January 2023
• 14^th of February 2023

For more information and registration contact uk.training@kiwa.com

Timeline

As with all revisions of the Global Standards, there must be a transition period between consultation, publication of the complete, finalized standard and the full implementation of the standard. Therefore:

• Issue 9 is published at 01 August 2022
• Certification against Issue 9 will commence in audits from 1 February 2023.

Would you like to know exactly what benefits the standard has for your company? Contact us and we will look together at what works best for you. Sent an email to food@kiwa.com and we will put you in touch with one of our experts. In the meantime you can also take a look here for some more background information.