The three types of BRCGS audit programmes explained
The BRCGS (Brand Reputation through Compliance Global Standards) offers several audit options to assess and certify your site’s compliance with Global Standard Food Safety requirements.
There three main BRCGS audit options are announced, blended and unannounced audits. Let’s take a closer look at how each one works.
1. Announced audit
With an announced audit, the audit date is scheduled and agreed in advance with your site and has to occur within the last 28 days of the site’s annual audit cycle.
The Global Standard Food Safety Clause 1.1.10 states:
“Where the site is certificated to the Standard, it shall ensure that announced or blended announced recertification audits occur on or before the audit due date indicated on the certificate”.
Where an audit occurs after the audit due date detailed on the certificate, your site will automatically receive a major non-conformity at the next audit. That’s unless you can justify the audit delay with one of the following situations.
The site is…
- situated in a specific country or an area within a specific country where there is government advice not to visit and there is no suitable local auditor
- within a statutory exclusion zone that could compromise food safety or animal welfare
- in an area that has suffered a natural or unnatural disaster, rendering the site unable to produce or the auditor unable to visit
- affected by conditions that do not allow access to the site or restrict travel (e.g. heavy snow)
- producing seasonal products where production is delayed by a late start to the season (e.g. due to weather or product availability).
An additional requirement for the announced audit programme is that one of the announced audits in a three year cycle is unannounced. It’s the certification body’s responsibility to determine which year in the three year cycle will be unannounced.
Where a certification body has decided to carry out an unannounced audit, your site will be informed in the first three months of the audit cycle. The unannounced audit will take place in the last four months of the audit cycle.
2. Unannounced audit
An unannounced audit occurs without prior notice within the last four months of the audit cycle.
When the auditor arrives at site to undertake an audit, they have to be in a production area (e.g., food production, packing or storage) within thirty minutes.
Where an auditor is prevented from getting into a production area within thirty minutes, they’re required to raise a major nonconformity. On an unannounced audit where an auditor is refused admission to the site, your site’s certificate will be suspended.
Depending on your grade, you have some control over when an unannounced audit takes (or doesn’t take) place.
- AA, A and B grade sites are allowed to nominate 10 days within the four month audit window that an auditor is not allowed to undertake an audit.
- C and D grade sites are allowed to nominate 5 days within the four-month audit window that the auditor is not allowed to undertake an audit.
Your site is also required to inform the certification body of any non production days within the four month audit window. So, the auditor doesn’t arrive on site with no production to witness.
3. Blended audit
Blended audits are a hybrid audit format:
- Part 1 (Remote): A portion of the audit (documentation review) is conducted remotely.
- Part 2 (On-site): The physical inspection and remaining audit components are done on-site.
Only sites that are certificated to the standard are allowed to take the blended audit option. The decision on whether a site is allowed to undertake a blended audit is made by the certification body after they’ve undertaken a risk assessment.
Part 1 of the audit (the remote part) occurs within the 56 days prior to the audit due date.
Part 2 (announced on-site audit) occurs within 28 days of the remote audit. The same principle as announced audits applies here: for sites in an announced audit programme, one audit in the three year period has to be unannounced.
Part two of the audit can be announced or unannounced.
Calculating your audit duration
The length of your audit is calculated using the Audit Duration Calculator Document Reference: F806 and is based on:
- Number of employees: Full time equivalent employees per main shift, including seasonal workers. This should be based on the maximum number expected in a shift.
- Size of the manufacturing facility (in square metres): Including onsite storage facilities. The conversion from square feet to metres is 10.76 (e.g., 86,000 square feet equals 8,000 square metres).
- The number of HACCP plans included within scope: For the purpose of this calculator, a HACCP plan corresponds to a family of products with similar hazards and similar production technology and will therefore usually correspond to the number of product types.
Want to learn more about the audit process? Check out these posts:
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