In 1998 the British Retail Consortium (BRC) developed and introduced the BRC technical standard and protocol for companies supplying retailer own branded products. These standard are as follows.
Three other BRC Standards have since been added:
The purpose of the four standards is to ensure that all retailer own branded food items are manufactured, packaged and distributed according to a defined set of guidelines and procedures ensuring product safety and consumer confidence. The most significant aspiration of Issue 6 is for food business operators to move towards the unannounced audit options. Several leading Irish and UK retailers are now insisting that BRC audits are carried out unannounced. The current version of the BRC Global standard for Food Safety has developed two options for unannounced audits both of which will be voluntary. One of these, Option 2 is the split option with day one on the factory floor looking at GMP issues and day 2 assessing the FSMS. Other areas of interest are the new colour coding of the standard, the new enrolment option and the new guidelines on defining the production risk zones.
On successful completion of this training course, delegates should be able to: