BRC-IOP GLOBAL STANDARD ISSUE 5

viscoNEWS issue #10 · Jun 2018

While many food safety standards are focusing specifically on the safety and quality of the food itself, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the Institute of Packaging (IoP) developed a standard that looks explicitly on the packaging of food. Depending on the intended use of the packaging, the standard differentiates between two risk categories. High hygiene covers packaging for direct food contact as well as skincare product containers, basic hygiene relates to non-food contact packagin

The main objective of the BRC Standard is to provide guidance to packaging manufacturers for legal compliance and consumer protection. Certified entrepreneurs benefit from

• constant improvement of product

• safety & quality

• meeting legal requirements

• reduced risk

• high customer confidence

• a strong and credible position in the supply chain

Both risk categories cover the areas of

• senior management commitment

• hazard & risk management system

• product & safety quality management

• site standards

• product & process control

• personnel

Behind these abstract wordings the Standard includes approx. 230 concrete requirements.

How to start?

For a first step, I recommend to create your own checklist. By defining what has to be done, by whom, and ideally also by when, you will soon have a system to handle these apparently countless requirements. Moreover, before you invite a BRC auditor for the first time, make use of your in-house know-how! Let one or two employees do an internal BRC audit. It can be quality managers or anybody you consider competent. It will serve you a lot of time and money and invalidate resentments (which are often present in a company that is developing and entering unknown territory) by giving your staff the possibility to get familiar with the requirements before an external intruder comes. Because, despite all the benefits a BRC certificate involves, at first it will be perceived as additional, maybe useless work. Convince your people right from the beginning – for that an external support can be very useful – that everybody is profiting from an employer that that manufactures safe, high quality and compliant goods.

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