BRCGS START!

BRCGS START! Requirements

The BRCGS START! standard requires food businesses to meet stringent requirements in order to achieve certification, including:

• Senior leadership – Senior managers must lead by example and fully support the START! programme.
• Continual improvement – Senior management should encourage continual improvement in food safety and quality management.
• The Food Safety Plan – A detailed food safety plan based on HACCP principles must be implemented and effective.
• Food Safety and Quality Management System – Processes and procedures must be documented to ensure consistent application and training.
• Site standards – The production site must be appropriately sized, located and maintained to minimise contamination risks.
• Product control – Procedures for product design and development must ensure safe and legal products are produced.
• Process control – Documented procedures must be in place to ensure safe, legal, and consistently high-quality production.
• People – Employee training, protective clothing, and hygiene practices must be actively managed.

For sites producing products that need careful handling, such as high-risk or high-care items, all these standards must be followed, along with specific requirements for these types of sites.

BRCGS START! Certification

BRCGS START! certification helps companies, especially smaller ones, set up and improve their food safety systems. It shows you’re committed to using good food safety practices for growing food businesses.

The certification evaluates your hygiene practices, safety protocols, and quality management systems. An independent certification body checks these elements to ensure they meet BRCGS START! standards. You need to renew the certification periodically to keep it valid.

Getting this certification builds trust with customers and stakeholders and shows that your business is dedicated to improving safety and quality in the food industry.

Key steps to becoming certified include the following:

• Getting started – Read the programme documentation, including the Interpretation Guidelines. Contact us to discuss your application.
• Learn – Attend BRCGS Academy training if you want practical help with implementation.
• Review – Conduct a self-assessment gap analysis with the standard and build and train an implementation team. At this stage, you may wish to use a consultant.
• Prepare – Based on your self-assessment findings, create an action plan, conduct risk assessments and establish control points. You will also need to prepare procedures and perform internal audits.
• Plan audit – Book an audit with us, making sure staff are available and ready.
• On-site audit – The audit will review your implementation of the standard. This includes observing procedures, documentation and conducting staff interviews.
• Non-conformities and corrective action – You have 28 days to fix any non-conformities with corrective actions and root cause analysis.
• Certification – We will review your non-conformities and finalise the audit report. If successful, certification is issued within 42 calendar days from the audit’s start.

Learn More About BRCGS START! Certification