Assessment on Implementation of the British Retail Consortium Global Standard for Food SafetyIssue 6 PT SSI

Abstract

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) Global Standards are widely used by suppliers and global retailers, facilitating standardization of quality, safety, operational criteria and manufacturers’ fulfillment of legal obligations. Since July 2011 the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety published the Standard issue 6 and has been implemented for certification starting at 1st January 2012. This study was conducted to assess the conformity of the BRC Standard issue 5 to issue 6, which has been implemented since 2006 at PT SSI, a wafer stick manufacturer located in Cikupa. Re-ordering of sections and re-numbering of clauses has been found within this standard, while 64 clauses and 223 subclauses on issue 5 become 86 clauses and 208 subclauses on issue 6. Important issue are new clauses for outsourcing management (3.5.4) that has been induced; specifying requirements of full traceability (3.9) that must be completed in 4 hours for quick response in a case of recall; Certification Body must be informed within 3 days in the event of product recall (3.11); and foreign body control (3.10) has been extended which reflected the management of risk from different technologies for detecting and removal of foreign materials. There are about 20 of 158 documented system still need to be fulfilled by PT SSI to comply with Standards Issue 6, which are supplier of services procedures and agreements (3.5); traceability (3.9) procedures must including requirements of 4 hours target of data completion; notification to Certification Body in recall procedures (3.11.4); security self assessment (4.2.1) must be provided; more detailed calibration and verification procedures of measuring and monitoring devices and those must included deviation tolerance (6.3), and a consistent personnel training and competencies reviews programs (7.1). Further study on the implementation of allergen management indicated that fully identification production line including supporting tools and dedicated cleaning procedure should be provided for product containing allergen, i.e. wafer chocolate-hazelnut. The assessment on foreign body control implementation identified improvement for specifying procedures in case of breakage of glass (4.9.3) as required in issue 6 and sieves application for crumb milling process to prevent contamination.