What BRCGS covers in food safety
BRCGS is a family of standards auditing safety and quality management in food and packaging manufacturing. The packaging materials standard rests on an on-site audit of hygiene, traceability, hazard analysis and contamination control. The result is issued as a letter grade and the certificate is renewed annually.
What gets audited
- Hazard analysis and critical control points
- Traceability — which batch came from which raw material
- Foreign body and contamination control
- Site hygiene and personnel practice
- Recall and incident management
How it relates to ISO 22000
Do they substitute for each other?
Their scopes overlap substantially, and BRCGS goes further in some areas. But when a procurement form asks for a standard by name, overlap does not fill the box. That is a certification decision rather than a wording one, and it depends on which name the market asks for.
Reading the grade
The audit result becomes a letter grade based on the number and severity of non-conformities. It should be read alongside the audit date and scope; the letter alone is incomplete information.
What a buyer should request
The certificate itself, the product groups it covers, the audit date and the validity period. Confirming that the certificate belongs to the producing site and covers the ordered product group is the substantive step in due diligence.
Frequently asked
- Does BRCGS certify a product or a site?
- A site, defined together with the product groups it covers. Relying on it for a product outside that scope would be incorrect.
- How often is it renewed?
- Normally through an annual audit. A lower grade can increase audit frequency.
Last updated: 2026-09-13