BRC Food certification: preparing for and achieving BRCGS Food certification.

In brief

• What the BRCGS Food standard covers : the food safety, quality, legality and authenticity requirements applicable to a food processing or packing site, organised into product categories.
• What Tracklab does : centralising supplier and product data, automating document collection, tracking deadlines and extracting critical information with AI, from the gap analysis through to maintaining certification.
• What Tracklab is not : neither a certification body, nor an ERP, nor a regulatory monitoring tool. The audit is conducted by an accredited third-party body.
• Who it is for : food processors and packers (ingredients, ready meals, dairy products, bakery, beverages, etc.) who must meet the requirements of their retail customers.
• The starting point : a short scoping of the perimeter (sites, product families, BRCGS categories), followed by a requirement-by-requirement gap analysis.

What the BRCGS Food standard covers

The BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety, in its current version (Issue 9), applies to organisations that manufacture, process or pack food. It structures its requirements around nine chapters: senior management commitment and continual improvement, the food safety plan (HACCP), the food safety and quality management system, site standards, product control, process control, personnel, risk zones (high-risk / high-care) and traded goods (traded products).

Product categories covered

The Food Safety standard distinguishes 18 product categories. The applicable category or categories depend on your products and processes, and must be agreed with the certification body, which assigns an auditor competent in those categories.

If your products fall under several categories, discuss this upstream with the certification body: several categories may need to be listed and audited. The scope of the certificate is therefore a decision to be framed early, as it determines the audit duration, the auditor's competence and your documentation obligations.

Sites concerned

The Food Safety standard primarily targets food production and packing sites:

• processors : ingredients, ready meals, dairy products, bakery, beverages, confectionery;
• packers and contract manufacturers that handle, repack or pack food;
• multi-product sites whose scope covers several categories in parallel.

Activities without a production site - brokerage, import, trading - fall under another BRCGS scheme, presented in our article on IFS and BRC for brokers and on our page BRC Broker certification. Logistics and storage, for their part, fall under the Storage & Distribution scheme.

Why British and international retailers require BRCGS Food certification

BRCGS was originally developed by the British Retail Consortium, the association of British retailers, to set a common baseline of requirements for suppliers. Its adoption has since extended to many international retailers and customers, who include it in their listing specifications. In practice, for a supplier, BRCGS Food certification is often a condition of access to certain retailers: without a valid certificate covering the required scope, listing is blocked or subject to additional customer audits.

Our guide to BRC certification places the Food scheme within the full range of BRCGS standards.

The scope of our BRCGS Food certification support

The engagement covers the preparation, achievement and maintenance of certification. It secures the evidence, supplier data and deadline management.

What Tracklab takes care of

• Gap analysis requirement by requirement, with the situation observed and the evidence available.
• Prioritised action plan, assigned by criticality, owner and deadline.
• Supplier and raw material data : centralisation of records, specifications, certificates, approvals and analysis results, with validity checks and automated reminders.
• Document deadline tracking : certificates, training, internal audits, calibrations - every deadline dated and tracked.
• Building and indexing the audit file, with AI extraction of critical information (certificate number, expiry date, scope covered).
• Operational preparation : simulated auditor route, mock audit, preparation for unannounced audits.
• Post-audit and maintenance : tracking of non-conformities and corrective actions, management of the surveillance and recertification cycle.

What remains out of scope

To define the service without ambiguity:

• The audit and the certification decision : these are the responsibility of the accredited certification body.
• Bringing facilities, processes and cleaning plans into compliance : these are actions internal to the site.
• Production, inventory or payroll management : Tracklab is not an ERP.
• Regulatory monitoring : Tracklab structures and exploits your documents, but replaces neither your own monitoring nor your legal obligations.

How the engagement unfolds, step by step

Each step produces a deliverable that feeds into the next. Durations vary according to your document maturity, the state of your supplier data and the target audit date.

Scoping the perimeter

Definition of the sites, product families, applicable BRCGS categories and target audit date, with everyone's roles: who provides what, who validates what.

Gap analysis

Review of the requirements one by one, with the situation observed, the evidence available and any gap. Objective: to obtain a reliable picture of the starting point, without judging the organisation.

Prioritised action plan

Ranking of gaps by criticality and effort: what blocks certification, what weakens the audit, what falls under continuous improvement.

Building the documentation file

This is where the platform takes over: automated collection from suppliers, completeness and validity checks, indexing and AI extraction of critical information. The file becomes accessible in a single place.

Operational preparation and mock audit

Preparation for the logistics of the audit: site tour route, key people, documents to be retrieved quickly. A mock audit tests the robustness of the set-up before the official date.

Certification audit

The audit is conducted by the accredited certification body, according to its protocol (announced or unannounced). Our role: to provide a complete file and well-prepared contacts.

Closing non-conformities

Root cause analysis, treatment and closure evidence. The BRCGS guide provides for a period of 28 days after the audit to close non-conformities; the evidence must be admissible and versioned.

Maintenance and surveillance

The certificate has a date: maintain the evidence, track deadlines, prepare the surveillance and then recertification audits. Each site must also plan for at least one unannounced audit according to the frequency defined by the BRCGS protocol.

The deliverables of our support

This foundation follows the same logic as our page compliance and certifications, applied to the Food standard.

Documentation requirements specific to the BRCGS Food standard

The exact list depends on the issue of the standard and on your product categories: always check the applicable version. Five families come up systematically when preparing a BRC Food audit.

HACCP (food safety plan)

The HACCP plan is the core of the standard. It includes hazard analysis (biological, chemical, physical, allergens), determination of critical control points, validated critical limits, monitoring, corrective actions and verification. It must be updated after any change of product, process or ingredient.

Product inspection and testing plan

The control plan covers the analyses and tests carried out on raw materials, finished products and the environment: parameters analysed, frequencies, methods, laboratories, and handling of non-conforming results. It must be consistent with the hazard analysis and documented.

Traceability and incident management

The standard requires upstream and downstream traceability that is demonstrable and regularly tested, together with a recall and withdrawal procedure. The traceability test must be dated and its results retained.

Allergen management

This covers allergen hazard analysis, the associated cleaning plan, validation of production changes, labelling and communication. The gap between written procedure and practice on the ground is scrutinised particularly closely here.

Supplier and raw material control

This requires a list of approved suppliers, documented approval criteria, performance evaluation and monitoring, as well as up-to-date specifications, certificates, approvals and analysis results. Non-European suppliers and raw materials vulnerable to fraud receive heightened attention.

These five families rely on data that changes constantly: supplier certificates, technical data sheets, approvals, analyses. A documentation file is of no use if it is incomplete on the day of the visit, hence the value of centralising supplier and product data rather than reconstructing it in a hurry.

Common mistakes that cause a BRCGS Food audit to fail

These gaps recur during preparation. Checking them upstream often prevents a major non-conformity.

1. Expired or unversioned documents : an expired supplier certificate undermines the auditor's confidence, even when practice is sound.
2. Untraceable evidence : undated, unsigned or incomplete records that do not demonstrate that the procedure is applied.
3. Inconsistency between written procedure and practice on the ground : the audit systematically compares the two.
4. Incomplete supplier management : no up-to-date approved list, undocumented evaluation, no verification of the highest-risk suppliers.
5. Missing food defence and food fraud plan : two requirements that are regularly overlooked, even though they are explicitly required.
6. Partial allergen management : incomplete hazard analysis or cleaning plan not validated after a production change.
7. Known but unaddressed non-conformities : a gap identified during an internal audit and never followed up with action becomes a sticking point in the certification audit.
8. Deadlines managed manually : without centralised tracking, deadlines fall at the same time and no alert triggers their handling.
9. Failure to anticipate the unannounced audit : the site is not organised to present people and documents at short notice.

To gauge the risk: a critical non-conformity leads to audit failure, a major one must be corrected and its closure accepted before the certificate is issued, and a minor one does not prevent certification but weighs on the grade.

Take action: scoping your BRCGS Food certification project

Three steps are enough to get started properly.

1. Scoping : a discussion to clarify your activity, your BRCGS categories and the desired audit date.
2. Gap analysis : a review of documentation and suppliers, with missing evidence identified.
3. Shared action plan : priorities, owners and timetable up to the audit.

Before this first discussion, prepare on your side:

• the list of your sites and the product families concerned;
• the target BRCGS categories and audit date, or your customer constraints;
• your latest audit reports, internal or external;
• your current supplier list and the documents you already have.

Still undecided between several standards? See which GFSI certification to choose. Would you first like to see how document data is structured? Discover compliance and certifications. To place the Food offer within the full set of BRCGS schemes, return to our guide to BRC certification.