6.

Overview of the different quality assurance standards/guidelines for the food industry
In this chapter an overview is given of the most relevant standards and guidelines with respect to quality, hygiene and safety of foods. These standards/guidelines are containing requirements/information which can be applied for the development of a company own quality management system.

6.1. ISO 15161: Guidelines on the application of ISO 9001:2008 for the food and drink industry
The ISO 15161 standard is a guideline for the implementation of the ISO 9001:2008 standard in the food industry. This document illustrates the interactions between ISO 9001 and HACCP and gives directives for the implementation of ISO 9001 in the food industry. Food safety is considered here as a part of quality. For this standard no certification is possible. The standard for certification is ISO 9001:2008, also for food companies. The structure and the content of the standard is the same as of the ISO 9001:2008 standard, but for every requirement (in a frame) an interpretation specific for the food industry is given (under the frame). In appendix C an example is given.

6.2. Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)

In April 2000, a group of international retailers identified the need to enhance food safety, ensure consumer protection, strengthen consumer confidence, to set requirements for food safety schemes and to improve cost efficiency throughout the food supply chain. Following their lead, the Global Food Safety Initiative was launched in May 2000. The initiative is facilitated by CIES The Food Business Forum. CIES is the organization of the 200 biggest retailers but aw well other stakeholders are member (e.g. multinational food industries). The initiative is based on the principle that food safety is a non-competitive issue, as any potential problem arising may cause repercussions in the whole sector. GFSI has developed a Guidance Document (Fifth Edition), against which food safety standards for manufacturing can be benchmarked. The benchmark requirements in the Guidance Document are made up of three key elements: Food Safety Management Systems; Good Practices for Agriculture, Manufacturing and Distribution (GAP, GMP, GDP); HACCP.

Compliance with all components of the key elements will lead to endorsement of a submitted standard through the Initiative framework and subsequent acceptance by retailers. Once a food standard has been benchmarked successfully, the standard is acknowledged. The conforming benchmarked food safety standard can be applied by food suppliers throughout the whole supply chain, upon agreement with retailers, when defining contracts for sourcing of products. The application of the benchmarked standards to particular products will be at the discretion of retailers and suppliers. An outline of the key elements, requirements and a guidance document for certification bodies, and the endorsement procedure with a logo usage guide, are all contained in the GFSI Guidance Document. The use of the logo is clearly defined in the Guidance Document. It is not intended to be used on products, but will be used exclusively in business-to-business communication. The logo will mainly be used on official documentation to prove that the supplier is in compliance with an endorsed food safety standard and not on the products themselves. GFSI does not undertake any certification or accreditation activities. Instead, GFSI encourages the use of third-party audits for benchmarked standards, with the goal of enabling suppliers to work more effectively through less audits and reducing travel costs for retailers, so that resources can be redirected to continually ensure the quality of food produced and sold worldwide. More information is available on www.ciesnet.com en www.globalfoodsafety.com.

6.3. BRC
6.3.1. History In supermarkets in the United Kingdom, about 50% of all foods are sold as private label. This implies that the retailers are responsible for these products. In the Food Safety Act 1990 concerning product responsibility, a new principle was introduced: the Due Diligence principle. It shall . be a defence for the person charged to prove that he took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence by himself or by the person under his control A consequence of this principle was that for every private label the technical execution like production methods of all suppliers has to be verified demonstrably. During the period 19901995 this resulted in a situation where every retailer made his own standard and had an extensive quality department with a lot of auditors to audit there suppliers. Consequently, there were high costs for the producer (specific requirements for every retailer, for every

retailer an audit, ) and for the retailer (extended quality department to make the standards and to audit the suppliers). To resolve these problems the BRC standard was developed in 1998. BRC stands for British Retail Consortium and represents the biggest British retailers (e.g. Tesco, Safeway, Somerfield, Sainsbury,). Together they compiled the requirements that the suppliers have to meet in the BRC-technical standard. As a consequence the supplier can comply with the requirements of the different retailers with only one certificate and limit the audits. The BRCtechnical standard is made by the retailers themselves, without involvement of the government, consumers or experts. At the beginning of 2008 the latest version is published (version 5), which will be implemented from 1st of July 2008. This contains 326 very detailed requirements. Although it was a British initiative, other countries, particularly Belgium and the Netherlands, also wanted to use the system. Some retailers in the Netherlands and Belgium demand an audit report of the suppliers of their private labels. Moreover, it is expected that the suppliers can demonstrate a continuous improvement. 6.3.2. Aim The aim of the BRC-technical standard is twofold. 1. For the retailers: limit the costs concerning supplier control; the objective report gives the retailer insight in the way on which the suppliers controls food safety and quality; meet the due diligence principle. 2. For the producers: limit the costs: 1 report for several retailers; the result of the BRC inspection can motivate the producer to improve continuously and in this way shift from the basic level to the higher level. 6.3.3. Structure The BRC standard consists of a technical standard for companies supplying retailer branded food products and an evaluation protocol. The evaluation protocol provides the specific requirements for the certification bodies that will evaluate against the BRC technical standard. The technical standard is an enumeration of more than 300 requirements that the suppliers have to meet. The BRC-technical standard requires: responsibility from senior management; the adoption and implementation of HACCP; a documented and effective quality management system;

control of product, process, personnel and the factory environment.

The BRC-technical standard is divided in 7 chapters; 1. senior management; 2. HACCP system; 3. quality management system; 4. factory environment standards; 5. product control; 6. process control; 7. personnel. Each section of the Technical standard begins with a highlighted paragraph in bold text, which is the statement of intent, that all suppliers must comply with in order to gain certification. Below the statement of intent, there are specific criteria regarding this subject. With the latest 2 versions of BRC there is no difference made anymore between higher or lower level, all demands are on the same level. There are as well some FUNDAMENTALS defined (since version 4) which are important, when a critical or major non conformity is defined during auditing, no certificate will be delivered (e.g. Traceability, training, HACCP,). More information is available on the website of BRC: http://www.brc.org.uk/. 6.3.4. BRC storage and distribution Since 2006 there is a well a specific standard for storage and distribution activities by companys in the food chain or non food chain. Activities such as transport, storage of deep frozen products, dry products, are considered. This BRC standard is a possibility mainly for service companys to the food industry/food chain. More information is available on the website of BRC: http://www.brc.org.uk/. 6.3.5. Fedis Food voor KMO This is a typical Belgian standard developed by FEDIS (=sector organisation of the distribution chain in Belgium) based on the requirements of BRC. This standard is aiming at smaller food companys. All demands are similar to those in BRC but made more simple or are demanding less registration. The audit report and the scoring system is based on the IFS system. More information : http://www.fedis.be/

6.4. International Food Standard (IFS)

6.4.1. History In 1999 the German retailers, united by the Bundesvereinigung Deutscher Handelsverbnde (BDH), started with the development of a standard to check their suppliers of private labels. The bases and aims were: Develop one standard with a uniform rating system, by which the interpretation of the auditor is limited. The control of the standard should be carried out by qualified certification bodies and auditors. The audit report should give a truthful view on the company and the used food safety systems. The audit should be a part of a continuous process of improvement and problems that occurred during the audit as non conform should be handled. Critical non-conformities should be known. The standard and the audit protocol should be in accordance with GFSI. The Germans came to the conclusion that they did not want to make a national, German standard, but an international standard. A working group was elaborated and started with the making of the first draft in October 2001. The content of the BRC standard was used as a base and the structure was derived from ISO 9001:2000. In the beginning it was a German initiative, but in the meanwhile the French and Italian retailers also got involved. Therefore, it is becoming more important in Continental Europe. From the 1st of January 2007 the latest version 5 is effective where also the Italian retailers have been working on and new European legislation (e.g. legislation regarding food contact materials) is included. 6.4.2. Structure and content The IFS standard is an enumeration of requirements on 3 levels: foundation level, higher level and recommendations on good practice. The standard contains 5 chapters: 1. Management of the quality system; 2. Management responsibility; 3. Resource Management; 4. Product realisation; 5. Measurements, analyses, improvements. 6.4.3. Rating system In order to determine whether compliance with a clause in the International Food Standard has been met, the auditor has to check every item in the standard. The auditor can rank his finding as follows: A: In full compliance with the criteria of the standard.

B: Almost full compliance with the criteria in the standard but a small deviation was found. C: Only a small part of the criteria is implemented. D: The criteria in the standard are not implemented. The auditor has to explain all B, C, and D non-conformities in the audit report. Besides the ranking, the auditor can decide to give the auditee a KO (knock-out) or a major non-conformance that will subtract points from the total amount. The 4 KO criteria in the standard are e.g. : 1.2.3 HACCP analysis; 2.2.2 Management commitment; 4.18 General traceability; 5.11 Corrective actions. When a KO criterion has been ranked with a D, 50% of the possible total amount of points will be subtracted and automatically mean that the auditee is not approved for the IFS certification. 6.4.4. IFS storage and distribution Following, the BRC storage and distribution, as well the IFS family made a standard specific for these activities.

6.5. HACCP-certification
6.5.1. History The initiative to develop a standard to certify the HACCP system was taken by the Dutch food processing industry, since the legislation and regulations in which the requirements for a HACCP-system are laid down, gave little guidance for the development, implementation and certification/registration of an operational HACCP system. In 1996 the first version of the Criteria for the assessment of an operational HACCP-system was finished. It was compiled by the Dutch National Board of Experts-HACCP (CCvD-HACCP: Centraal College van Deskundigen-HACCP) and is based on the essential elements of a HACCP system. Since the base for the standard, the Codex Alimentarius Alinorm, was changed in 1997, the CCvD-HACCP published in September 1998 the second version of the criteria. Also the gained experiences were included. To comply with the requirements of GFSI and the new European regulations concerning food hygiene, the Dutch HACCP-certification criteria were adapted. Together with the adaptations a change of name was done, from Criteria for the assessment of an operation HACCP-

system (1996) to Requirements for a HACCP-based food safety system (September 2002). The essential changes are clearly incorporated in the change of name. The actual version is dating from 2006 to be conform the GFSI mother standard version 4. 6.5.2. Structure The structure of the standard is based on the 7 basic principles and the 12 steps of the Codex Alimentarius, supplemented with some extra requirements on quality management system. It is after all necessary to add some elements of a quality management system to achieve an operational quality system that is focussed on continuous improvement. Besides the HACCP principles the following additional requirements were included: policy statement, management review, traceability, recall, calibration and document control. Additional information can be found on the website: www.foodsafetymanagement.info.

6.6. SQF 2000

In 1995 the Australian government and some farmer organisations developed a system to control the complete chain with 1 system. This system was based on a chain scan: SQF (Safe Quality Food). Later this system was translated to a standard; SQF 2000. The bases for this standard are the HACCP requirements, of the Codex Alimentarius, and the requirements of the ISO 9000 series. Since, representatives of agriculture were involved in the development of the standard, it is directly applicable in primary production. Since the summer of 2003, SQF is managed by the Food and Marketing Institute (FMI) in Washington. Because of the big diversity in size, processes and products, it was not possible to use 1 standard for all the companies of the food chain. Therefore, 3 different standards were developed: SQF 1000: for primary production and small-scaled processors and service providers (so called low-risk companies). SQF 2000: for bigger industry (so called high risk companies). SQF 3000 is still in development and is focussed on retail. www.sqfi.com.

6.7. Approval by GFSI

Five standards are approved by GFSI: BRC Technical standard; Dutch HACCP code; EFSIS standard; International Food Standard; SQF 2000 code.

This means that the standards can use the GFSI logo and that the certificates for these standards are considered as equal by 65% of the retailers over the world. Benchmarking of farm assurance standards for agricultural produce started in 2004.

6.8. ISO 22000

Since national initiatives for HACCP-certification (e.g. the Netherlands, Denmark) did not had international success, Denmark launched the proposition for an international standard. Therefore, ISO started in 2001 with the elaboration of a standard with requirements for a management system for food safety based on HACCP. The international standard specifies the requirements for a food safety management system that combines the following generally recognized key elements to ensure food safety along the food chain, up to the point of final consumption: interactive communication; system management; process control; HACCP principles; Prerequisite programs. The first version is from September 2005. The difference with the retailer and GFSI approved standards are and are as well the reason why ISO 22000 is not GFSI approved and not accepted by the retailers in Europe: No explicit demands regarding pre requisite programs Quality is not in the scope only food safety

Positive regarding this standard is the international acceptance and the application in the whole food chain (not restricted to food transformation as the ones approved by GFSI). In the following chapters the demands are formulated: Chapter 4 : management system for food safety Chapter 5 : responsibility of the management Chapter 6 : Measure of resources Chapter 7 : Planning and realisation of safe products (e.g. demands regarding PRPs and HACCP) Chapter 8 : validation, verification and improvement of the management system for food safety

6.9. Overview and integrated approach

An overview of the different standards can be found in appendix D. As was explained in chapter 3, the scope of the different quality management systems is different. These differences are illustrated in the following figure with examples.

Food safety management

Quality management (e.g., ISO 9000)

Long-term manageral strategy (e.g., TQM)

General requirements

Specific requirements

All quality elements

GMP/GHP (always applied)

Food safety assurance plan (product/process specific) = HACCP plan

Quality system

Figure 3: Integrated approach (adapted from Jouve et al., 1998)

7. Overview of different quality management systems in primary production

7.1. GLOBAL-GAP as retail initiative
Eurep-GAP started in 1997 as an initiative of a group of European retailers, the Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP). The goal was to elaborate standards and procedures for the development of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), in other words a quality management system for primary production. The following sectors are included: fruit and vegetables, flower and ornamentals, integrated farm assurance, integrated aquaculture assurance, green coffee. In 2007 the EUREP-GAP standard was extended both in scope and became internationally recognised by the retailers. The name changed into GlobalGap. The GlobalGap standard is primarily designed to reassure consumers about how food is produced on the farm by minimising detrimental environmental impacts of farming operations, reducing the use of chemical inputs and ensuring a responsible approach to worker health and safety as well as animal welfare.

The most important point of interest of the standards that are developed within GlobalGap is food safety, closely related to traceability. The starting point is legislation. However, it is not enough to focus on food safety, the consumer has also other demands towards food quality. Aspects that are related to sustainable agriculture are also included. Therefore, attention is given to environment and well-being and safety of the workers. Also technical aspects of the cultivation are included in the standards. Elements of quality management systems are limited and include registrations, training of the personnel and forms for complaints. 7.1.2. Structure of GlobalGap The new GlobalGap standard version integrates all agricultural products into a single farm audit. Producers of different crops and livestock can now avoid multiple audits to meet various market and consumer requirements. There are modular applications (see Figure 4) for the different product groups, ranging from plant and livestock production to plant propagation materials and compound feed manufacturing. Crops base Fruit & vegetables Flowers & ornamentals Combinable crops Green coffee Tea Cotton* Others Cattle & sheep Dairy Pigs Poultry Others Salmon & trout Pangasius* Shrimp* Tilapia* Others

Integrated farm assurance standard

Livestock base

Aquaculture base

* in development (January 2008) Figure 4. Structure of GlobalGap

7.1.3. Content of GlobalGap The documentation of the system is organised in major blocks, which is available for each type of activity, giving: system rules referred as General Regulations (GR) : in this chapter rules for auditing and combination of audits are given. There are recommendations, major must and minor must. The major and minor musts must be fulfilled for obtained the certification. global G.A.P. requirements referred to as Control Points and Compliance Criteria (CPCC) : in here we can find the actual requirements for the specific activity in the primary sector. These are including e.g. : all farm base: (section AF) o record keeping and internal self-assessment/internal inspection o site history and site management o workers health, safety and welfare o waste and pollution management, recycling and re-use o environment o complaints o traceability crops base (section CB) o traceability o propagation material o site history and site management o soil management o fertiliser use o irrigation o integrated pest management o plant protection products fruit and vegetables (section FV) o propagation material o soil and substrate management o irrigation o is there a written justification for the use of soil fumigants ? o product handling (post harvest) continuing for the other activities

Important to note is that there is always a general starting point for all activities section AF , followed by a general part for crops section CB or livestock section LB or aquaculture section AB, and finally the activity specific requirements section FV, CC, CO, TE, FO, CS, DY, PG, PY, SN (see figure 5). Inspection documents referred as checklists (CL) : which are applied during the audit, to check whether all requirements or CPCC are fulfilled

AF

CB

Crops base

All farms base

LB Livestock base

AB Aquaculture base

FV Fruit & vegetables FO Flowers & ornamentals CC Combinable crops CO Green coffee TE Tea Cotton* Others CS Cattle & sheep DY Dairy PG Pigs PY Poultry Others SN Salmon & trout Pangasius* Shrimp* Tilapia* Others

* in development (January 2008) Figure 5: structure of the documentation and requirements of Global Gap More information : www.globalgap.org

7.2. Germany: Qualitt und Sicherheid fr Lebensmittel vom Erzeuger bis zum Verbraucher (QS)
The QS system was developed in Germany by all those that are involved in the production and marketing of meat. It is a certification system to ensure the quality and origin of meat and meat products. In order to achieve this goal QS:

installed a system for quality management and control which covers all stages from birth through to slaughtering, cutting and processing and including transportation and storage; creates transparency at all stages of production, from birth through to point of sale; makes it possible to trace the origins of the raw materials; takes account the consumer interests to a degree which exceeds legal stipulations as early as the specification stage when laying down requirements for QS-approved products; pays due attention to considerations of animal welfare.

The QS standard apply to both domestic and imported products. Within QS, professional associations and organisations from the feedstuff industry, the farming industry, the meat industry, the meat production industry, the food retailing industry and CMA (Centrale Marketing Gesellschaft der deutschen Agrarwirtschaft mbH the central association for marketing for the German agriculture). Besides a standard for meat and meat products also a system for fruits and vegetables has been developed in the meanwhile. Additional information can be found on http://www.q-s.info/

7.3. Other quality management system for primary production

Besides these GLOBAL-GAP and QS standards there are also a lot of other quality management systems, that are used more on national level (e.g. Integrated quality assurance milk (IKM, Belgium), environmental project ornamental plant cultivation (MPS), the Netherlands, Integrated chain quality control system (IKKB, Belgium), etc.).