BRC Global Standards - Who Inspects against them ?
A number of companies are assessed by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to inspect and issue certificates against the BRC standard food and packaging standards. Whilst each company is accredited by UKAS to the same standard, the choice of inspection / certification body needs careful consideration as for example, some retailers will only recognise a limited number of these inspection companies. It is therefore possible to be approved against the BRC Standard only to find that the company who carried out the inspection is not on the approved list of the company you are planning to supply. It should therefore not be viewed in the same way as say ISO 9000 where the standard is recognised regardless of the approved inspection body used.
The BRC Standards for were revised in 2002 to a product certification schemes under EN 45011. In order to carry out evaluations against the revised BRC standards, the BRC required that all Inspection Bodies convert into Certification Bodies which are independently assessed by UKAS. Some of the standards were renamed e.g. the standard for food should now be referred as the 'BRC Global Standard - Food' although it is often still referred to as BRC Accreditation.
A fundamental difference between "inspection" and "certification" is a requirement for continuous improvement under the latter process. As a result, a site will only be eligible for certification against the revised standard when ALL non-conformance's – Critical, Major and Minor have been satisfactorily rectified (and verified by the Certification Body). Submission of an "action plan" by itself is not deemed satisfactory in order to attain a certificate.
A limited number of companies can audit against both the BRC and IFS standards. We may see the services of the larger certification companies expanded to include ISO 22000 as well.
A list of approved certification bodies is maintained on the BRC website.
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