GFSI Benchmarking Requirements Version 7: Food Fraud Becomes a Requirement
With Version 7 of its benchmarking requirements, published in 2017, GFSI asks every recognised certification scheme to include food fraud vulnerability assessment and a mitigation plan.
Key points
- GFSI does not certify sites; it benchmarks certification schemes against its requirements.
- Version 7 requires recognised schemes to cover food fraud vulnerability assessment and mitigation.
- Certified sites will see the change through new clauses in their own scheme.
How GFSI works
The Global Food Safety Initiative sets the requirements that a certification scheme must meet to be recognised. Schemes such as BRC, FSSC 22000, IFS and SQF then update their own standards, and those are what sites are audited against.
What is new on food fraud
Recognised schemes must require a documented food fraud vulnerability assessment and a documented plan with the measures taken to reduce the identified vulnerabilities. The plan must be supported by the site’s food safety management system.
What a site needs
- A list of raw materials and suppliers, with their history and supply-chain length
- An assessment of how likely fraud is and how easily it would be detected
- Control measures: supplier approval, specifications, testing and audit
- A review at least once a year and when the market changes