Food fraud prevention focus for FSSC 22000 version 4

By Joseph James Whitworth

- Last updated on GMT

Picture: iStock
Picture: iStock
FSSC 22000 has revealed version 4 of its international food safety and quality management system certification scheme.

It is the result of a 14 month consultation process with industry, certification and accreditation bodies, training organizations and governments.

The scheme includes requirements for unannounced audits, prevention of intentional product contamination and critical nonconformities.

FSSC said changes would improve consistency and stringency and are based on the experience in applying version 3.

Reviewing the standard, John Spink, director of the Food Fraud Initiative at Michigan State University, said it follows GFSI direction to require a food fraud vulnerability assessment (FFVA) and a food fraud prevention strategy.

“The standard requires a separate food fraud vulnerability assessment and prevention strategy for all types of fraud, all products, and across the food supply chain, from raw materials to finished goods supplied to end users,” ​he said.

“They also require a separate food defense threat assessment and control plan for all types of attacks – e.g. tampering and disgruntled employees, not just the FSMA Intentional Adulteration scope of terrorist-type “wide scale [human] public health harms.”

All certified sites shall be audited against version 4 from January 1, 2018.

“The FSSC certification scheme continues to support securing food safety certification across the breadth of our supply chain, with the introduction of new scopes that meets urgent certification needs in our supply chain to minimize food safety risk,” said ​Mark Brasler, director of food safety programs with Coca-Cola.

The scheme requirements can be downloaded for free from the FSSC 22000 website and the certificate fee will not be increased.

FSSC 22000 is one of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognized standards.

GFSI guidance document version 7 or as it is now known Benchmarking Requirements V7 will be ready by February.

SQF is working on the SQF Code Edition 8 expected anytime followed by a six month period to comply with requirements.

An ISO 22000 update is also planned for late 2018 with a draft standard for members to vote on by Q1 2017.

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