GFSI Certification For Your Food Business - How and Where to get it?

By Harshali Patil|October 23, 20170 Comment

Safe food supplies support national economies, trade and tourism, contribute to food and nutrition security, and underpin sustainable development.As the worldโ€™s population grows, the intensification and industrialization of agriculture and animal production to meet increasing demand for food creates both opportunities and challenges for food safety. Climate change is also predicted to impact food safety, where temperature changes modify food safety risks associated with food production, storage and distribution. Being a priority of manufacture, retailer due to high profile recalls, Food safety requirements of different countries leads to the development of GFSI Certification scheme.

GFSI Certification

GFSI Certification | Discoverfoodtech.com

What is GFSI?

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is managed by The Consumer Goods Forum and was launched in May 2000. The GFSI Foundation Board of Directors is drawn from major global retailers, manufacturers and foodservice operators and, together, this group provides the strategic direction for and oversees the daily management of GFSI. GFSI brings together key actors of the food industry to collaboratively drive continuous improvement in food safety management systems around the world. With a vision of Safe food for consumers everywhere, food industry leaders created GFSI in 2000 to find collaborative solutions to collective concerns, notably to reduce food safety risks, audit duplication and costs while building trust throughout the supply chain.

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The GFSI is powered by the Consumer Goods Forum. The mission of GFST is to provide continuous improvement in food safety and management system to give the confidence of delivering safe food to the consumer across the world.

Objective of GFSI Certification

  • Reduce food safety risks by delivering equivalence and convergence between effective food safety management systems, as outlined in this Guidance Document.
  • Manage cost in the global food system by eliminating redundancy and improving operational efficiency.
  • Develop competencies and capacity building in food safety to create consistent and effective global food systems.
  • Provide a unique international stakeholder platform for collaboration, knowledge exchange and networking.
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Scope of GFSI

The GFSI Guidance Document specifies the process by which food safety schemes may gain recognition and gives guidance to schemes seeking compliance. It also specifies the requirements to be put in place for a food safety scheme seeking recognition by GFSI and the key elements for production of safe food or feed, or for service provision in relation to food safety.

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In January 2011 GFSI published version 6, in which GFSI has new modular format which divided into 4 distinct parts,

  1. The benchmarking process- The process of benchmarking includes procedural steps and timelines that apply to food safety, which is not benchmarked previously. In version 6, the benchmarking process is transparent and open.
  2. Requirements for management schemes- it describes the governance and management requirements for implementation of food safety scheme which is to be considered for benchmarking.
  3. Scheme scope and element- Scope to cover all parts of food supply chain.
  4. Glossary lists the terms and definitions used in the GFSI Guidance Document

Benefits of GFSI Certification

GFSI recognition offers the industry the knowledge that benchmarked scheme is based on food safety principles. It helps to continuous improvement in the delivery food safety standards. GFSI is a platform which recognized global food safety standards.

GFSI does not make policy for retailers, manufacturers, or food safety certification program, GFSI does not own any standard or certification; it does not undertake any training program.

How To Get GFSI Certification?

To become certified to a GFSI-recognised certification programme:

  1. Identify the scope/-s based on the type of activity/-ies of your operation.
  2. Contact the GFSI-recognised certification programme owner (CPO) that covers your scope to determine which of the certification programmes fits best with the type of activities that your company carries out.
  3. Request from the selected CPO an approved list of certification bodies that can carry out audits against their certification programmes, or
  4. Contact your preferred certification body and find out against which GFSI-recognised certification programme they can offer an audit.
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Where To Get GFSI Certification?

SaiGlobal International is the leading Certification body for GFSI Certification in India.
Checkout it here

References

  1. http://www.mygfsi.com/gfsifiles/GFSI_White_Paper_-_Enhancing_Food_Safety_Through_Third_Party_Certification.pdf
  2. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs399/en/

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