The BRC Global Standards are internationally recognized as leaders in the market setting the reference point for good manufacturing practices in food, packaging, storage and distribution, agents and brokers, and consumer products. Certification enables customers to have confidence in their suppliers, and helps providers by enabling them to show they are maintaining high standards of safety, quality and legal compliance.
The requirements of BRC Food Issue 7 Documents are an evolution of the above, with a continuous focus on management commitment, analysis and critical points of risk and (HACCP) – food safety program and support the quality management system. The aim was to direct the focus of the audit to the implementation of good manufacturing practices in the production areas with more emphasis on areas that have traditionally led to recalls and withdrawals .
Key changes for the Requirements of BRC Issue 7:
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Stability: The BRC Food Issue 6 has been well received and we recognize that the standard is used as the basis for quality management systems to thousands of sites worldwide. In reviewing and rewriting the standard, we tried to focus on a few major areas where the standard should be revised to reflect the landscape of food security in evolution. The vast majority of requirements of the standard are unchanged or with minor changes to the wording to add clarity. This should mean that, for most of the sites for the development to prepare for the number 7 is concentrated on a few key areas.
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Supply chain traceability: Supply chains for products became increasingly complex, often including raw materials around the world and may include agents or brokers as intermediaries. This led to a lack of transparency that manifests itself all too often when a problem occurs requiring complete traceability of raw material. Retailers and Food service companies are increasingly looking for more information on the source of raw materials used in their products and confidence in food safety systems managed by suppliers of raw materials. In recognition of this issue 7 extended traceability requirements to include assurances on the traceability system operated by suppliers of raw materials.
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Customer Focus: Most companies’ audits on customer sites of BRC certified have a focus on customers’ own policies. A new set of requirements has been added to provide customers greater confidence that the sites are aware of and act on the customer’s specific policies in the production of products for customers.
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Ambient Area with New High Care: BRC Food Issue 6 introduces more on environmental controls for high care and high-risk chilled and frozen products. Since the Issue 6, there have been a number of highly publicized incidents of food security affecting ambient products. In response a new requirement has been introduced to ensure that there is environmental risk based controls to protect ambient products where the product is cross-contamination from raw material after treatment.
BRC Food Safety System Certification 