BRCGS Food Safety is a private certification standard audited by approved third-party certification bodies. A site is assessed on its food safety management system, its HACCP study, site and process control, product control and personnel practices, then given a grade. Most European retailers and importers treat a valid certificate as a baseline condition for supply.
What the certificate actually tells you
- The legal entity and the site address that were audited. A certificate covers that site and nothing else, so a co-packer or a second cold store needs its own.
- The scope: which product categories and which processes were included. Frozen fruit and dried fruit are different categories.
- The grade, and whether the audit was announced or unannounced.
- The audit date, the issue date and the date the next audit is due.
- The certification body and its accreditation.
What it does not tell you
A certificate is a snapshot of one audit day. It says nothing about how the site ran in the eleven months afterwards, whether a withdrawal happened, or whether the exact article you are buying sits inside the certified scope. Ask for the audit report summary and the non-conformity list alongside the certificate, and check the certificate in the scheme owner’s public directory rather than trusting a forwarded PDF.
BRCGS republishes the standard as numbered issues. Confirm the issue number in force at the audit date instead of assuming the newest one.
Read next: what a BRCGS auditor checks, or the full BRCGS Food Safety entry in the standards library.