Mutual recognition means a buyer accepts any certificate issued under a scheme benchmarked to a common set of requirements, instead of naming one scheme. In practice it is the working consequence of GFSI benchmarking: BRCGS, IFS Food and FSSC 22000 are treated as interchangeable at the food safety level.
Why it works this way
The alternative is audit duplication. A site selling to buyers who each name a different scheme ends up certified two or three times over, paying for audits that test the same controls, and passing that cost back in the price. Recognition against a shared benchmark removes the duplication without lowering the bar.
Recognition is not equivalence in every respect. Schemes still differ in scoring, in unannounced audit policy, in how they treat traded goods and in the customer-specific modules bolted on top. What they share is the food safety floor.
What follows in practice
Write purchasing requirements as “a GFSI-recognised scheme covering the site and product category supplied” and let the supplier bring the certificate they already hold. That widens the supply base at no cost.
Keep the exceptions explicit. If a downstream customer contractually requires a named scheme, say so in the requirement rather than leaving the supplier to discover it after approval. FSSC 22000 against ISO 22000 shows what happens when a scheme is not recognised and why the distinction still matters.