Global Standard Food Safety-Issue 9 Auditor Checklist & Site Self-Assessment Tool

How to use the BRCGS Auditor Checklist & Site Self-Assessment tool?

This tool is designed to help you assess your operation against the requirements of the Standard and help prepare you for your certification audit.

The checklist covers each of the requirements of the Standard and may be used to check your site’s compliance with each of these requirements. The checklist also allows you to add comments or identify areas of improvement in the empty boxes provided at the end of each section.

While we hope that this tool is useful in helping you prepare for your audit it should not be considered as evidence of an internal audit and will not be accepted by auditors during an audit.

Senior management commitment and continual improvement:

Senior management commitment and continual improvement:

The site’s senior management shall demonstrate that they are fully committed to the implementation of the requirements of the Global Standard Food Safety and to processes which facilitate continual improvement of food safety, quality management, and the site’s food safety and quality culture.

Organizational structure, responsibilities and management authority:

The company shall have a clear organisational structure and lines of communication to enable effective management of product safety, legality and quality.

The food safety plan – HACCP:

The company shall have a fully implemented and effective food safety plan incorporating the Codex Alimentarius HACCP principles.

The HACCP Food Safety team:

The HACCP or food safety plan shall be developed and managed by a multi-disciplinary food safety team that includes those responsible for quality assurance, technical management, production operations and other
relevant functions (e.g. engineering, hygiene).

The team leader shall have an in-depth knowledge of Codex HACCP principles (or equivalent) and be able to demonstrate competence, experience and training. Where there is a legal requirement for specific training, this shall be in place.

The team members shall have specific knowledge of HACCP and relevant knowledge of products, processes and associated hazards.

The scope of each HACCP or food safety plan, including the products and processes covered, shall be defined.

• Prerequisite programmes
• Describe the product
• Identify intended use 
• Construct a process flow diagram 
• Verify flow diagram
• List all potential hazards associated with each process step, conduct a hazard analysis and consider any measures to control identified hazards
• Determine the critical control points (CCPs)
• Establish validated critical limits for each CCP
• Establish a monitoring system for each CCP
• Establish a corrective action plan
• Validate the HACCP plan and establish verification procedures
• HACCP documentation and record-keeping

Food safety and quality management system:

• Food safety and quality manual
• Document control:
• Record completion and maintenance:
• Internal audits:
• Supplier and raw material approval and performance monitoring:
• Raw material and packaging acceptance, monitoring and management procedures:
• Management of suppliers of services:
• Management of outsourced processing
• Specifications
• Corrective and preventive actions
• Control of non-conforming product
• Traceability
• Complaint-handling
• Management of incidents, product withdrawal and product recall

Site standards:

• External standards and site security
• Food Defence
• Layout, product flow and segregation
• Building fabric, raw material handling, preparation, processing, packing and storage areas
• Utilities – water, ice, air and other gases
• Equipment
  • All production and product-handling equipment shall be suitable for the intended purpose and shall be used to minimise the risk of contamination of product.
• Maintenance
  • An effective maintenance programme shall be in operation for plant and equipment to prevent contamination and reduce the potential for breakdowns.
• Staff facilities
  • Staff facilities shall be sufficient to accommodate the required number of personnel, and shall be designed and operated to minimise the risk of product contamination. The facilities shall be maintained in good and clean condition.
• Chemical and physical product contamination control: raw material-handling, preparation, processing, packing and storage areas
  • Appropriate facilities and procedures shall be in place to control the risk of chemical or physical contamination of product.
• Chemical control
• Metal control
• Glass, brittle plastic, ceramics and similar materials
• Products packed into glass or other brittle containers
• Wood
• Other physical contaminants
• Foreign-body detection and removal equipment
  • The risk of product contamination shall be reduced or eliminated by the effective use of equipment to remove or detect foreign bodies
  • Selection and operation of foreign-body detection and removal equipment
  • Filters and sieves
  • Metal detectors and X-ray equipment
  • Magnets
  • Optical sorting equipment
  • Container cleanliness – glass jars, cans and other rigid containers
  • Other foreign-body detection and removal equipment
• Housekeeping and hygiene
  • Housekeeping and cleaning systems shall be in place which ensure appropriate standards of hygiene are maintained at all times and the risk of product contamination is minimised.
  • Cleaning in place (CIP)
  • Environmental monitoring
  • Waste and waste disposal
    • Waste disposal shall be managed in accordance with legal requirements and to prevent accumulation, risk of contamination and the attraction of pests.
  • Management of surplus food and products for animal feed
    • Effective processes shall be in place to ensure the safety and legality of by-products of the primary processing activity of the site.
  • Pest management
    • The whole site shall have an effective preventive pest management programme in place to minimise the risk of pest presence, and resources shall be available to respond rapidly to any issues which occur to prevent risk to products.
    • Pest management programmes shall comply with all applicable legislation.
  • Storage facilities
  • Dispatch and transport
    • Procedures shall be in place to ensure that the management of dispatch and of the vehicles and containers used for transporting products from the site do not present a risk to the safety, security or quality of the products.

Product control:

•  Product design/development
  • Product design and development procedures shall be in place for new products or processes and any changes to product, packaging or manufacturing processes to ensure that safe and legal products are produced
• Product labelling
  • Product labelling shall comply with the appropriate legal requirements and contain information to enable the safe handling, display, storage and preparation of the product within the food supply chain or by the customer.
• Management of allergens
  • The site shall have a system for the management of allergenic materials which minimises the risk of allergen contamination (cross-contact) of products and meets legal requirements for labelling in the country of sale.
• Product authenticity, claims and chain of custody
  • Systems shall be in place to minimise the risk of purchasing fraudulent or adulterated food raw materials and to ensure that all product descriptions and claims are legal, accurate and verified.
• Product Packaging
  • Product packaging and processes for the purchase of product packaging shall be appropriate for the intended use. Packaging shall be stored under conditions to prevent contamination and minimise deterioration.
• Product inspection, on-site product testing and laboratory analysis
  • The company shall undertake or subcontract inspection and analyses which are critical to confirm product safety, authenticity, legality and quality, using appropriate procedures, facilities and standards.
• Product release
  • The site shall ensure that finished product is not released unless all agreed procedures have been followed.
• Pet food and animal feed
  • The site shall ensure that pet food and animal feed products are safe and fit for intended use.
•  Animal primary conversion
  • For animal primary conversion, the site shall operate controlled processes that ensure products are safe and fit for intended use.

Process control:

•  Control of operations
  • The site shall operate to process specifications and work instructions/procedures that ensure the production of consistently safe and legal product with the desired quality characteristics, in full compliance with the HACCP or food safety plan.
• Labelling and pack control
  • The management controls of product labelling activities shall ensure that products will be correctly labelled and coded.
• Quantity – weight, volume and number control
  • The site shall operate a quantity control system which conforms to legal requirements in the country where the product is sold and any additional industry sector codes or specified customer requirements.
• Calibration and control of measuring and monitoring devices
  • The site shall be able to demonstrate that measuring equipment is sufficiently accurate and reliable to provide confidence in measurement results.

Personnel:

• Training: raw material handling, preparation, processing, packing and storage areas
  • The company shall ensure that all personnel performing work that affects product safety, legality and quality are demonstrably competent to carry out their activity, through training, work experience or qualification.
• Personal hygiene: raw material handling, preparation, processing, packing and storage areas
  • The site’s personal hygiene standards shall be developed to minimise the risk of product contamination from personnel, be appropriate to the products produced and be adopted by all personnel, including agency-supplied staff, contractors and visitors to the production facility
• Medical screening
  • The company shall have procedures in place to ensure that staff, agency staff, contractors or visitors are not a source of transmission of infections, diseases (including food-borne diseases) or conditions to products.
• Protective clothing: staff or visitors to production areas
  • Suitable site-issued protective clothing shall be worn by staff, contractors or visitors working in or entering production areas.

Production risk zones – high risk, high care and ambient high care:

The site shall be able to demonstrate that production facilities and controls are suitable to prevent pathogen contamination of products.

• Layout, product flow and segregation in high-risk, high-care and ambient high-care zones
• Building fabric in high-risk and high-care zones
• Equipment and maintenance in high-risk and high-care zones
• Staff facilities for high-risk and high-care zones
• Housekeeping and hygiene in high-risk and high-care zones
• Waste and waste disposal in high-risk, high-care zones
• Protective clothing in high-risk and high-care zones

Requirements for traded products:

• The food safety plan – HACCP
  • The site shall operate a HACCP or food safety plan for the processes for which it is responsible.
• Approval and performance monitoring of manufacturers/packers of traded food products
  • The company shall operate procedures for approval of the last manufacturer or packer of food products which are traded to ensure that traded food products are safe, legal and manufactured in accordance with any defined product specifications.
• Specifications
  • Specifications or information to meet legal requirements and assist customers in the safe usage of the product shall be maintained and available to customers.
• Product inspection and laboratory testing
  • The site shall operate processes to ensure that the products received comply with buying specifications and that the supplied product is in accordance with any customer specification.
• Product legality
  • The company shall have processes in place to ensure that the food products traded comply with the legal requirements in the country of sale where known.
• Traceability
  • The company shall be able to trace all product lots back to the last manufacturer and forward to the customer of the company.

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