BRC Global Standard Food Safety

BRC Food is currently being revised, with publication of version 8 expected in August 2018. This new version will apply for all BRC audits from February 2019.

The main changes expected are summarised below:

• Introduction of a new Food Safety Culture approach in the first section concerning management and their commitment, with requirements on the setting up of a strategy for the development and improvement of a corporate culture in food product safety with, for example, an internal communication system to feed back operational information to the management.

• Review of some of the terminology of the HACCP system in order to comply with various international legislation, such as the FSMA.

• A review of the requirements on Food Defence, with a focus on the analysis of internal and external risks (threat).

• A more stringent approach for controlling subcontracted activities and processes, such as the obligation for GFSI certification for subcontractors.

• More detailed requirements on the monitoring of the production environment for at-risk products, with details on sampling, frequency, methods, the aims of analyses carried out on pathogens and alteration.

• Introduction of pet food into the scope of the BRC

• Grouping together of current requirements in high-risk and high-care zones, which in principle remain unchanged, into a single new section, section 8.

• The current voluntary module on traded goods will become a full part of BRC Food, with a new section 9.

• The disappearance of option 2 of the unannounced audit. This means that there will only be two options (no obligation): the unannounced or totally unannounced audit.