Many businesses choose to operate to independent standards. The reasons business choose to operate to these standards may be to add value to products, improve internal processes, grow their business, or to meet the requirements of key customers or market segments.
Gaining Halal, Woolworths or Organic Certification
Quality – ISO9000
Food Safety – Woolworths Supplier Excellence Program - Food Manufacturing Standard, BRC - Food Safety, SQF2000
Sustainability – Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
Religious – Halal (Regulated by MPI in some sectors for export)
If you wish to operate one of these or any other standard and need help, send us an e-mail, or give us a call. We can help you to:
Integrate the requirements of third party standards with the regulatory programme that you run (eg NP, FCP, RMP, RCS etc)
Confirm effective implementation and operation by auditing prior to verification by a registered programme auditor
Implement corrective actions required under the programme or standard
Most independent standards have requirements to operate to a documented programme to achieve the requirements of the standard. They also require periodic verification to be conducted by registered verifiers within approved audit organisations. We can assist you though the implementation of these standards and can conduct audits to monitor how well you are complying with them. However, you will still need to engage the approved organisation to arrange verification.
Quality ISO Standards in Food
The most common third party certified Quality Management System is ISO 9001. This is a generic framework that should help businesses to become more efficient and respond effectively to their customers’ needs. ISO offers a range of standards structured similarly that can dovetail together standards include:
ISO 14001 Environmental Management
ISO 22000 Food Safety Management
ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety
Ensuring Chain of Custody Requirements
Many standards require the product to be traceable to specified or certified inputs:
Religious standards to ensure that no inappropriate inputs are used. For example, Islamic faith requires only permitted “Halal” foods to be consumed. Anything that is not Halal is Haram and must be excluded from foods and the food production systems. Chain of custody controls including sourcing, storage, labelling and packaging all contribute to assuring that product remains Halal.
Sustainability standards to ensure that the materials are produced / sourced only from certified inputs, for instance MSC, BioGro.
