What is BRCGS?

BRCGS was founded in the UK in 1996 by the world's leading retailers seeking to ensure compliance with food safety standards throughout the supply chain. The trade association, which was originally established as BRC, abbreviation of the British Retail Consortium, published its first technical standard, the BRC Food standard, in 1998. In 2000, shortly after the publication of its first technical standard, the association received GFSI approval with this standard.

The trade association, which continued its life as BRC for 20 years, was acquired by the international life sciences measurement and testing company LGC Group in 2016. In 2019, the name of the standard was changed to suit the new targets, and the Brand Reputation through Compliance Global Standard was launched as BRCGS for short.

BRCGS is a globally recognized GFSI accredited certification program today in both the food and non-food categories. With the BRCGS certificate, it is aimed to provide an international level of trust between the supplier and the customer throughout the supply chain. The BRCGS certificate shows that the owner company complies with the product safety, quality and legal compliance issues determined by the BRCGS standards. maintains and continuously develops.

BRCGS publishes its certified companies through the “BRCGS Directory” portal. In this way, the current documents of the companies can be inquired by anyone who wants them through this portal, while at the same time, it is ensured that the certified companies are visible on an international basis.

BRCGS Food standard, which was first published in 1998, reached its 9th version in August 2022. The BRCGS Packaging Materials standard, which was published in 2001 and is the second standard of BRCGS, has reached its 6th version.

The standards published by BRCGS;

BRCGS Food Safety (First published in 1998)

BRCGS Packaging Materials (First published in 2001)

BRCGS Consumer Products (First published in 2003)

BRCGS Storage and Distribution (First published in 2006)

BRCGS Agents and Brokers (First published in 2014)

BRCGS Retail-Retail (First published in 2016)

BRCGS Gluten Free-Gluten Free (First published in 2019)

BRCGS Ethical Trading - Ethical Trading and Responsible Sourcing (First published in 2019)

BRCGS Plant-Based Standard First published in 2020)

Benefits of Certification in BRCGS Standards;

It is an internationally accepted GFSI approved standard. It is valid anywhere in the world.

It means an international trust for the productions within the scope of the document.

It provides an audit report and documentation that is acceptable to customers and replaces customers' own audits.

Audit reports are uploaded to the BRCGS Directory and the certified business report can be shared with any customer through this portal at any time.

The fact that the customer does not audit by accepting the BRCGS document saves time in accelerating the trade and provides a serious advantage in cost.

Getting the right to be on an international platform with the BRCGS Directory

It provides proof that your business cares about these issues, as it provides a third-party independent audit for your business on product safety, legality, authenticity, and quality.

With announced and unannounced audit options, businesses can also prove their belief in their systems to their customers.

It also creates an opportunity for the business to advertise by allowing the use of the logo within the framework of the BRCGS logo usage rules, which are clearly defined in the BRCGS Standards.

It creates an opportunity for the suppliers of companies certified in accordance with BRCGS Standards to develop.

Why are BRCGS Documents Required?

BRCGS uses color codes for each rule, i.e. standard item, to clearly express whether it wants a document or good manufacturing practice, while determining its own rules in standards such as food and packaging. The green color means a document in the relevant standard item, the orange color is good manufacturing practice, and the use of green and orange together means that both a document and an application are required in that item. Of the 285 articles of the standard, 167 articles, that is, about 60%, explicitly mention the document requirement. Regarding the remaining good manufacturing practices items, a document will be required in many of those items, as the "write what you did" rule applies to describe your practices within the business.

Why is the BRCGS Questionnaire Necessary?

When there is no system in an enterprise, the system is installed first. In order to set up the system, you need to read the BRCGS Standard, understand and internalize what it means. But when you are at the beginning of the system and you have no system knowledge, this is not an easy process at all. Standards are similar to regulations. You need Lawyers because you can't fully judge what kind of law you read. Here, too, you need a professional to interpret the standard for you. At this very point, Suswise comes into play with the question lists that professionals who know the standard very well simplify and simplify this standard for you, and guide you during the system installation phase or how correctly you have installed the system.

After the system installation, when you need to perform internal audits or GMP audits or supplier audits for the continuity of the system, you need internal audit question lists to perform and manage the audit correctly, but it is not easy to adapt them from the standard language to your business. Again, just at this stage, you can buy and start using the question lists prepared by experienced Suswisers for you to speed up and make things easier. Or, if you have an audit question list but want to do the audit digitally, Suswise supports you to carry your question lists into the application and to conduct audits on a tablet and phone.

Suswise; has developed QuickCheck (Question List) software, which you can use by purchasing ready-made question lists created by professionals who are experts in the field, or you can easily upload and use your own question lists. Thanks to QuickCheck, you can conduct your inspections in the field, assign tasks to your teammates for nonconformities, perform root cause analysis, report nonconformities in the field and monitor the current status of your inspections with detailed graphic reports.

The QuickCheck application has been prepared in such a way that companies can easily carry out all audit processes without requiring almost any software knowledge. QuickCheck is a very powerful application for companies that want to digitally and archive their audits.

Prepared by: Sibel Taşhan Yurtseven, Lead Auditor for GFSI Approved Standards