Development of Food Safety Standards
In 1998, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) developed and introduced the BRC
Global Standard for Food Safety to be used to evaluate manufacturers of retailers’
own brand of food products. This standard is now in its fifth edition, which was published on January 4, 2008, and has been translated into 10 languages: Chinese (
Simplified), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and
Italian. The BRC Global Standard for Food Safety has evolved into a globally accepted standard used not just to assess retailer suppliers but also as a framework upon
which many companies have based their supplier assessment programs and manufacture of products. Following the success of the Global Standard – Food, the BRC published the first issue of the Packaging Standard in 2002, followed by the Consumer
Products Standard in August 2003 and finally
by the BRC Global Standard – Storage an
vised and updated at least every three year d
Distribution in August 2006. Each standard is regularly reviewed and is fully re-s
after consultation with a wide range of “The Global Food
stakeholders. These standards are available Safety Initiative (GFSI)
on BRC’s Web site at www.brc.org.uk/. Th e
major elements of the BRC Global Standa rd emerged in 2000 to
for Food Safety are provided in Supplemen - address the need to
tary Table 1 at www.foodsafetymagazine.co m/
article.asp?id=3027&sub=sub1. ensure food safety
The International Food Standard (IFS) w as in Europe.”
first published in 2003 by the German Reta il
Union food retailers (Hauptverband des
Deutschen Einzelhandels or HDE). In 200 3, F rench retailers and wholesalers from France’s Feder ation of Com-
mercial and Distribution Companies (FDC) joined the IFS Working Group and
contributed to the development of the IFS standard’s fifth edition, which was published August 5, 2007. The IFS standard is available at www.food-care.info. Its major
elements are described in Supplementary Table 2 at www.foodsafetymagazine.com/
article.asp?id=3027&sub=sub1.
The Safe Quality Food (SQF) 2000 Code provides a food safety and quality management certification program that is tailored to the needs of the food processor. The
code was developed in Australia in 1994, and pilot programs were implemented to ensure its applicability to the food industry. It was prepared with the assistance of experts in quality management, food safety, food regulation, food processing,
agriculture production systems, food retailing, food distribution and the Hazard
Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) guidelines. The Food Marketing Institute
acquired the rights to the SQF program in August 2003 and has established the SQF
Institute (SQFI) division to manage the program. The SQF 2000 Code Level 2 is recognized by the GFSI as a standard that meets its benchmark requirements. The SQF
2000 Code has evolved with time and the sixth edition, published in August 2008, is
posted on the SQFI Web site at sqfi.com. The SQF 2000 Code is available in both
English and Spanish; its major elements are described at Supplementary Table 3 at
www.foodsafetymagazine.com/article.asp?id=3027&sub=sub1.
The SQF 1000 Code provides a food safety and quality management certification
program for the primary producer. A draft of that code’s fifth edition was available for
comment by May 1, 2009. On February 4, 2009, GLOBALGAP and SQFI announced that the SQF 1000 standard will be benchmarked to the GLOBALGAP standard. Benchmarking by GLOBALGAP means that SQF will be able to offer produce
growers a food safety certification that is recognized by both GFSI and GLOBALGAP. As a result, a primary producer will be able to receive both SQF and GLOBALGAP certification at the same time in a single audit. The SQF Codes are reviewed
every three years by the SQFI Technical Advisory Council.
In 2004, the Foundation of Food
Safety Systems (SCV) was founded by
the National Board of Experts in the
Netherlands. The SCV maintains the
Dutch certification scheme for a standard
that is known as Dutch HACCP. For all
practical purposes, Dutch HACCP has
not emerged as a major player in the U.S.
market, so this standard’s major elements
are not described here. However, the
standard is available at www.foodsafety-management.info.
These private entities began to develop food safety standards for certification, bringing increased costs to
E uropean food retailers since a food
processor may have sold product to sev-e ral retailers, each wanting products to be
c ertified to a different standard.
I SO 22000: Bringing Harmony to the
S tandards
In 2001, Danish Standards requested
t hat ISO undertake the development of
a n international food safety management
s tandard. By this time, there were not
o nly a large number of private standards,
b ut a number of countries—including Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Australia and the United
States—also had their own national food
safety standards. Thus, the ISO sought to
harmonize and publish an international
food safety standard. In 2005, the ISO
working group accomplished its objective
and published ISO 22000.
ISO standards are developed using a
transparent process that is designed to
encourage input from all of the standard’s stakeholders. This is done by having both a national Technical Advisory
Group (TAG) and an international standards working group. Sometimes a TAG
is called a Mirror Group. The TAG is
open to all professionals with the appropriate credentials who want to contribute
to the standards development or review
process. At the national level, each TAG
develops a consensus position that is
taken to the international committee by
the national delegation.
ISO 22000 has a structure similar to
ISO 9001:2000 and other ISO management system standards, such as ISO 9001
(quality management), ISO 14001 (
environmental management) and OHSAS
