BRC International Standard Version 7Kharla Segovia, Professor of the Official University Master's Degree in Food Safety Management at Bureau Veritas University Center, writes about a topic of great current interest in the agri-food sector, such as the new update of the international BRC standard, in its version 7, published in the recent month of January.
Since January 2015 , the food industry has had a new version of the BRC standard for food safety certification. This version 7 comes loaded with some important new features for the sector.
Overall, it can be said that the BRC standard, although it was already one of the strictest and most recognized worldwide, with this version 7, poses a more rigid panorama for all companies that want to be certified .
The most significant changes are the creation of a structure of part time data requirements that more robustly address all possible frauds that may occur in the food industry . For this reason, the need to establish stricter controls in aspects such as raw materials, packaging and labelling is clearly reflected in this new version.
Two important changes can also be distinguished in terms of the certification categories that companies can obtain .
On the one hand, a new certification category called AA has been created , which can only be obtained by those entities that have less than 5 minor non-conformities during the on-site audit , which grants the highest category of BRC certification only to organizations that are close to perfection in terms of food safety.
Another important change is the possibility for all certified and non-certified companies to opt for unannounced audit programs , with the possibility of obtaining a plus (+) categorization , in the event of certification being granted. Until now, this was only possible for entities already certified and with certification levels A or B.
In accordance with the important new features established in the new version of BRC, the mandatory use of which will take place from July of this year, the teaching team of Bureau Veritas University Center in collaboration with specialized personnel from the agri-food activity of Bureau Veritas Certification, have carried out the update of the contents of the popular Official University Master's Degree in Food Safety Management , in order to offer the best contents in the sector to our current and future students.