Version 5 of the FSSC 22000 certification scheme has just been announced. The Foundation Food Safety System Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000) is a GFSI recognised food safety management system, which sets out the requirements for the certification of food safety management systems of organizations within the entire food supply chain. The new version brings in a number of changes across the scheme, which are mainly structure-based. The FSSC 22000 Framework consists of three components: ISO 22000, PRPs and the additional FSSC 22000 requirements.
The main reason for the revision to V5 of the FSSC 22000 is the publication of the latest version of ISO 22000 in 2018. Other reasons for the changes include:
- Inclusion of the Board of Stakeholders’ list of decisions
- Continual improvement process
- Compliance with GFSI requirements
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The main change in the ISO 22000:2018 standard is that it now follows the same High-Level Structure (HLS) as other ISO standards like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. This was done to allow for easy integration with the other management systems. The adoption of the High-Level Structure has led to several changes, relating to:
- Understanding the context of the organization
- Needs and expectations of interested parties
- Strengthened emphasis on leadership and management commitment
- Actions to address risks and opportunities
- Strengthened focus on objectives as drivers for improvement
- Extended communication requirements
- Less strict requirements for a food safety manual
The new version of ISO 22000 is now a risk-based standard, in line with the changes in ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015. The standard will henceforth distinguish between risk at an operation level and at a strategic level of the management system, and its ability to reach its specified goals as such. In the new version of the FSSC 22000, there is an optional quality management module. This module includes all the integrable elements of ISO 9001 into the FSSC 22000 certification, making it possible to combine Food Safety Management Certification with Quality Management Certification.
FSSC 22000 is applicable to various branches of the food supply chain: food manufacturing, animal feed production, farming, food packaging manufacturing, food item transport, food item storage, catering, wholesale, as well as retail. The updates to the scheme are therefore of great importance to a number of businesses.
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