Why Audits Are Part of the Food Safety System

The frequency of the audit is also important as well as whether it is “announced,” allowing the plant to prepare, or “unannounced,” allowing the auditor to get a good idea of the day-to-day operational norms in a food processing plant. Annual audits are required by most of the GFSI-recognized third-party certification schemes, including SQF. A new feature in recent years has been the addition of mandatory unannounced SQF audits of all suppliers a minimum of once in every three-year audit cycle.

With all GFSI third-party certification programs like SQF, the Certification Body (CB) audits the food processor (“site” in SQF vocabulary) and in turn, is audited by the American National Standards Institute who reports the outcome to SQFI to make sure CBs are applying the SQF standard correctly. The site requesting certification is re-audited each year by a registered SQF auditor qualified to audit that particular type of food. These site audits are required each year in order to maintain a supplier’s SQF certification. This provides a true “third-party” component to the GFSI system.

Companies preparing for an auditor’s visit often choose to have a pre-audit conducted with an independent third-party who will come into the facility with the same fine-tooth comb, looking for where food safety systems are running well, and equally important, where they can be improved.

Annual audits are a “good” thing because they protect the company and the consumer by ensuring the products are manufactured using adequate:

• Food Safety Fundamentals (prerequisite programs and other requirements);
• Food Safety Plans, such as HACCP; and
• Quality Plans (a requirement for SQF Level 3 certification).

Food safety plans must be monitored and verified throughout the year, making sure the entire written food safety program is being supported with detailed records at the right frequency, capturing operational data. All food safety criteria are required to be supported by records, or it did not happen. Each record must be signed by the plant person conducting the activity and verified by a trained supervisor or other authorized individual. Effective audits and auditors have to make decisions about which records and how many records need to be reviewed as part of their audit plan to provide confidence that the plant was and is implementing its food safety plan in an effective manner.

Within the SQF system, the SQF Practitioner must conduct verification and validation checks of the entire SQF food safety program, identify any gaps, and establish a corrective action plan to fix these gaps. This could be done using internal audits, analysis of processing data using statistical process control, trend analysis, ingredient and finished product testing, or some other metric that would indicate adequate implementation on a day-to-day basis or maintenance of safety/quality.

Without regular external and internal audits, the commitment of the organization and the status of the food safety system would be in question and eventually the diligence in maintaining the system would suffer. In other words, with competing interests, it is conceivable that food safety could fall from the highest priority level list with these resources reallocated, if audits did not occur.

While no system is perfect, consistent annual auditing enables most operations to achieve “good” or “excellent” within the current SQF or their own internal rating system. Although perfection is probably not obtainable, excellence is certainly a goal and difficult to maintain. Experience has shown that if senior management reinforces the need to achieve “excellence,” then it becomes an organizational goal and is obtainable. The audit does keep the system alive and improving, whatever level is achieved.

Customer Expectations Are Met

The customers (buyers) expect excellence in food safety systems, whether the site has achieved a GFSI-based third-party certification, such as SQF, or by other means and recognized systems. The main goal is to demonstrate a safe and high-quality product for their customer (at retail or food service level). In most cases, buyers have come to expect certification in order to accept food products from suppliers/sites, but whether choosing to go the GFSI route or not, senior site managers should be allocating enough resources to reaffirm their food safety commitment annually.