How GFSI harmonizes global food safety practices

Around the world, there has been a sudden appearance of the GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) label. Among those involved in international food supply, the GFSI symbol offers a potential peace of mind. With the global connection of commerce growing, food items and ingredients are being passed back-and-forth over borders all the time. This leaves a strong desire for companies to use a consistent connection of food safety practices.

Even within one country, food safety standards vary dramatically between industries. The necessary hygienic food practices adjust with the nature of a food’s form and the level it is prone to spoilage. Government regulations offer guidance for food handling. Within the United States, this is covered by FDA, USDA and state agencies.

The level of guidance varies considerably for type of food and area of process. This guidance can be strict practices or general suggestions, which leaves many food producers in a position to provide custom expectations for each facility or product line.

Not-for-profit organizations such as 3-A SSI and the European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group (EHEDG) offer standards or guidelines that supply important details of how to design to achieve those objectives. These standards specialize in areas such as equipment or system design.

Different industries — and global regions — have their favorite standards for different industries and regions of the world. Expand this stack of options to the range of choices around the world and you can quickly see the time needed to access each unique method’s set. Trying to provide a consistent level of hygienic quality care is extremely difficult.

GFSI was created to aid in this consistency. Rather than a set of rigid detailed standards, GFSI operates as a benchmark system. The benchmark outlines the common criteria of methods of review for risk analysis methods.

While not the inspection service itself. GFSI provides an ecosystem to unify and guide the auditors that will evaluate individual plants. The auditors represent separate companies that are qualified as a CPO (Certification Program Owner).

This is a layered approach that allows each unique producer to create their own custom HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) review. The CPO will review the HACCP execution and the resulting plant construction and operation. This allows regional experts to build from familiar practices but work toward a common level of hygienic design.

The full GFSI program covers the full breadth of food generation and distribution, ranging from farming and cultures to retail and catering. GFSI programs are currently broken into 20 categories. A CPO must be approved for a particular category to provide recognized GFSI audits under that category. The greatest focus of concern for this consistency has been from the side of retail and distribution. But the system was intended to cover all pieces, including processing.

Representatives of 3-A SSI and EHEDG cooperated with GFSI to develop two primary categories of focus for food processing, JI and JII.

JI – Hygienic Design of Food Buildings and Processing Equipment (Constructors or Manufacturers).

JII – Hygienic Design of Food Buildings and Processing Equipment (Users).

At the time of this writing, there are no CPOs recognized to conduct audits of JI or JII organizations. Evaluators well known in this area such as SQF, BRCGS, and FSSC 22000 are recognized for other categories, but GFSI has yet to add them to the J categories. With the latest benchmarks having only rolled out in 2020, it is likely something that will appear in the near future. It should be noted, however, that BRCGS and FSSC have started to incorporate requirements from the JII benchmarking requirements into their current certification programs for food producers.

Equipment manufacturers and food product producers preparing for GFSI review can be ready by having a solid documented plan. Such an audit should go easier with prescreen of benchmark expectations.

To get started, EHEDG has prepared a 60-page white paper to give guidance to companies that are interested in applying the requirements of GFSI scope JI or JII. Ultimately, it will be the CPO standards, based on GFSI scope JI or JII requirements, against which companies can be certified. (See EHEDG at https://www.ehedg.org/). The document is geared a bit more for European audiences, but provides a good outline of all the requirements that need to be covered.

The overall plan requires more investment from equipment manufacturers to have a detailed review of applications. They would be expected to perform risk analysis on the range of applications that a particular piece of equipment could be used for and then confirm the equipment’s suitability and the ability to clean.

Producers in compliance with current U.S. standards are on the right track for preparation. For example, having a robust HACCP review, purchasing equipment conforming to 3-A SSI Sanitary Standards, and having systems inspected to USDA Guidelines are essential elements of the hygienic and quality control plan.

In summary, the GFSI system builds on existing industry safety and outlines a checklist for each stage of the supply chain to be involved in consumer safety. For equipment manufacturers and producers, the systems are still in development, but will build on a foundation of familiar industry practices. DF

Jason Tucker is a Fellow – Food Equipment & Systems at CRB Group in Marshfield, Wis. He also holds accreditation from 3-A SSI as a Certified Conformance Evaluator (CCE) and is qualified to conduct Third Party Verification (TPV) inspections which are required for 3-A Symbol authorization and other certificates.