What are the BRC and GFSI?

The British Retail Consortium is the leading Trade Association for UK retailing. They have developed the BRC Global Standard for Food in order to help the food industry meet legislative requirements of the EU General Product Safety Directive and the UK Food Safety Act.

This standard is recognized as a GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) benchmarked food safety scheme and has been accepted by 7 major retailers: Carefour, Tesco, Metro, Migros, Ahold, Wal-Mart and Delhaize.

The GFSI is a project led by the business forum CIES in 2000 to harmonize international food safety standards and reduce the need for multiple supplier audits. The CIES members include world leading retailer organizations and food manufacturers.

Rather than create another standard, the GFSI Technical committee identified the key components necessary for good food safety standards and the operating protocols for the delivery of certification and created a benchmarking document. Standard owners such as the BRC were invited to submit their standards for benchmarking.

The BRC was the first standard to be recognized as meeting the GFSI benchmark. Benchmarking to GFSI ensures that the BRC Global Standard for Food is accepted by many of the world’s biggest retail groups e.g. Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco and Metro. The BRC’s ability to react to changing food safety concerns, meet customer requirements, and yet provide a simple, easy to follow process for manufacturers, has resulted in the Standard becoming the most popular GFSI standard, with over 14,000 certified sites worldwide.

The Standard provides benefits not only for the retail industry but also for food manufacturers, importers, caterers, ingredient suppliers and the food service industry. It is currently used by suppliers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Far East, North and South America and Australasia. Offering this truly global standard fits perfectly with Cert ID’s worldwide certification activities, and is an international mark of excellence for the certificate holder.

If you have questions about food safety and about how you can obtain a BRC Food Safety certification, contact Valerie Hirschhorn by phone at 1-641-209-1899 ext. 106 or via email at valerie.hirschhorn@cert-id.com