11th December 2024 | 18 Comments

Are supplier assessment questionnaires getting out of control?

Are you getting frustrated by the length and complexity of the supplier questionnaires that you’re being asked to complete? One of our readers got in touch with us this week, after receiving another questionnaire that was 40 plus pages which contained questions, such as: Are monkeys used for harvesting coconuts? Have any of your animals [...]
2nd October 2024 | 4 Comments

How do you interpret ‘previous audit performance’?

We’d like to share with you how we interpret 'previous audit performance' from clause 3.4.1 of BRCGS Food (this applies to the other standards too). It would be great to hear your views on the interpretation and if you agree. Internal audit frequency risk assessment The BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 standard states that the [...]
18th September 2024 | 3 Comments

Why root cause analysis shouldn’t be applied to minor non-conformances

Purpose This piece is written to resolve the confusion around when root cause analysis must be applied to non-conformances. For the purposes of referencing, BRCGS Food Safety Standard Issue 9 has been used as a reference in this article, as the requirements on this topic across the BRCGS standards tend to be similar. Background It’s [...]
3rd September 2024 | 3 Comments

How a shift in mindset changes how you look at the standards

This year I’ve been working on customer standards full time (I think it's going to be my forever job!), adding them to, or aligning them with the BRCGS standards. Although I’ve been working with these standards for over 20 years, every time I look at them - due to the level of detail that I’m [...]