The ISO 22000 Certification is a certification system for food safety management systems that give your customers the assurance that they have implemented an effective food safety plan and management system. Their popularity is growing rapidly and more and more large retailers and manufacturers expect their customers to receive the required certification to prevent disease, and recall of expensive and harmful products. This standard can be applied to all companies in the food chain from the field to the store, including producers, transporters, packers, processors, retailers, bottlers, and restaurants.
A unified system to ensure the integrity and safety of every link in the food chain has become indispensable for consumer protection. There are many different standards around the world, which is confusing for both manufacturers and consumers. Two global organizations have begun to standardize their systems and recognize their standardized systems worldwide.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed a food safety management system (ISO 22000). This standard applies to all food businesses, whether farmers, manufacturers, packers, or retailers. The ISO 22000 Certification is recognized worldwide and enjoys increasing popularity. The number of certifications has doubled in the last year.
The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is a division of the Consumer Goods Forum and collaboration between retailers, manufacturers, and food service companies working to harmonize food safety standards. The GFSI compares various food safety standards with a set of basic criteria. Standards that meet the criteria will be recognized. Many large retailers and manufacturers are asking their suppliers to register for a system recognized by GFSI. FSSC 22000 is one of the referenced standards.
The Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000 is a certification system based on the standards ISO 22000 and PAS 220 for food manufacturers. It contains both the requirements for a food safety management system according to ISO 22000 and the requirements for prerequisite programs in the publicly available standard (PAS) 220. ISO and FSSC have the same requirements for the food safety management system. They differ in the way they define the PRP requirements:
ISO 22000 requires that PRPs appropriate to the organization and the product be implemented to control the likelihood of hazards. The standard does not specify the required PRPs and details of the PRPs but requires the organization to consider and use appropriate information
The FSSC 22000 has the above requirements but includes the PAS 220, which contains specific requirements for PRPs that manufacturers must contact.
When choosing a certification scheme, it should be kept in mind that FSSC applies only to manufacturers. If you are not a manufacturer, ISO 22000 is the standard. When you produce food, you have the choice between the ISO or FSSC standards. It’s important to determine what your customer base needs to determine which standard is right for your business.
If you have decided that ISO 22000 certification is right for your business, you need to implement a food safety management system to meet the requirements of the standard. These requirements go beyond PRPs and HACCP Certification and include processes for managing the system throughout the enterprise. This means planning, designing, documenting, and implementing a comprehensive food safety management system.
It may take organizations 3-9 months or more to complete implementation in their organization. Once the system is set up and used as part of the daily business, a registrar will come and perform a certification audit. If the auditor determines that the system meets the standard and is followed by the entire organization, he will recommend your institution for certification.
How does a company plan, engineer, document and implement the system to be ready for certification? If you have not yet implemented a management system, it can be difficult to plan and manage all parts of the deployment project. The ISO 22000 All-in-One Training and Templates Pack has been designed to give you all the information you need to know about the implementation.