Everything That Needs to Know About the FSSC 22000 Standard

The Food Safety Management Systems Certification Scheme (FSSC 22000) provides a framework for successfully managing food safety and quality obligations. The FSSC 22000 certification verifies that a comprehensive and operational food safety management system (FSMS) is in place to fulfill the needs of regulators, food industry clients, and consumers. The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognizes the FSSC 22000 Scheme, which is backed by the European Food and Drink Association (CIAA) and the American Groceries Manufacturing Association (GMA). Other GFSI programs, such as IFS, BRC, and SQF, are product certification standards, whereas FSSC 22000 is a management system certification scheme, which means there is a significant difference in the audit approach – essentially, FSSC 22000 provides the framework for organizations to implement processes in whatever way they see fit to meet the requirements.

The Foundation for Food Safety Accreditation established the FSSC 22000 system, which is a company-level certification. The standard supports organizations in ensuring that food and drinks are safe to consume. Also, FSSC 22000 documents help to identify which requirements are suitable for the organization. FSSC 22000 completely includes ISO 22000 and pre-requisite programs, in addition to the standards mentioned in the certification. The Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000 certification process is based on a mix of ISO 22000 sector-specific PRP and FSSC additional criteria. Customers need a recognized standard against which a food safety management system could be audited and certified, therefore FSSC 22000 was created.

The GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) has provided FSSC 22000, as well as other food safety schemes like BRC or IFS, Global Recognition. The Foundation for Food Safety Certification owns the certification program. FSSC 22000 was created to certify food safety systems that ensure product safety during primary production of animal products, manufacturing of perishable animal and/or vegetable products, products with a long shelf life, and (other) food ingredients such as additives, vitamins, and bio-cultures, animal food and feed production, and food packaging manufacturing, and has recently expanded to include catering, retail/wholesale, and transport and storage services.

Here is some system specifies the detailed requirements:

The food safety system of the food organizations to be certified,

• The certification system of the certification bodies,
• The system of accreditation by the accreditation bodies.

The FSSC 22000 standard can be implemented in any type of the organization, irrespective of size and location, which produces food within the following categories:

• Unpreserved products of animal origin, excluding slaughterhouses and previous stages.

Perishable plant products

• Products with long life unprotected to room temperature.

• Biochemical products for food production, apart from reaction catalysts and other technical and technological supports.

FSSC 22000 establishes a standard language for supply chain communication and allows for adequate flexibility to address specific client requirements. The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognizes the FSSC 22000 standard, which is authorized under ISO guidance 17021. Because it is based on an ISO standard, it has a global reputation, provides a common language that promotes communication throughout the supply chain, and allows for enough flexibility to handle individual client requirements.

The list of benefits of FSSC 22000 Food Safety Management System:

• Established outstanding diligence in meeting regulatory and customer requirements
• Also, improved company profile, reputation, and brand protection
• It improved stakeholder confidence
• knowingly better marketing opportunities leading to higher profits
• Also improved food safety in the supply chain and increased supply chain management
• It minimized risk and food safety-related occurrences
• Improved food safety performance
• Better protection from spurious food poisoning allegations
• It is easily integrated with other management systems.

Henry Nelson has published many articles regarding ISO Certification. Henry has rich experience as a online publisher and prepared various Certification documents as per ISO guideline since large amount of years in his professional career.