IFS FOOD STANDARD

International Food Standard

Our Services

Benefiting from a long experience in the agri-food sector, Certiquality provides certification services against the IFS Food standard as an effective tool to guarantee consumer safety. Certiquality is accredited to grant IFS Food certification and performs audits for all classes of product that fall within the scope of the IFS Food standard. Such audits are conducted by highly qualified personnel, who can also carry out integrated audits against the key food safety standards.
A fundamental requirement for the application of the IFS Food standard is that the product to be certified is manufactured or packaged on the site where the inspection is to take place.
An IFS Food audit is conducted to verify each of the following aspects:
Senior management responsibility;
Quality and food safety management system;
Resource management;
Planning and production process;
Measurements, analysis, improvements;
Food defence and external inspections.

How can we help your business?

Framework

Following the growing use of private labels in the food retail industry, the associated members of the German retail federation (HDE), in collaboration with the federation of French retailers and the Italian association of retailers, developed a standard that would help protect retailers by defining strict criteria for the qualification and selection of their suppliers. The IFS Food standard was developed to specify the food safety,quality and operational criteria required to be satisfied by a food product company in order to fulfil its obligations with regard to legal compliance and consumer protection.
Achieving certification against the IFS Food standard is essential for all companies wishing to expand their market and sell retailer-branded products to high-volume retailers.The IFS Food standard is internationally recognized as a GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) scheme.

Recipients

Any food business: manufacturing retailer-branded food products or bevarages; manufacturing retailer-branded raw materials; packing loose food products

Your Benefits

Qualifies the certified company as a supplier to the ^{high-volume retail industry.}

Provides recognition at an international level.

Ensures visibility and allows to share the audit report with the largest retail chains through the IFS database.

Allows companies to ensure food safety in compliance with applicable legal requirements.

Implements continual performance improvements in terms of food safety.

Enhances mutual confidence between suppliers and retailers.

The Certification Process

The main stages of the certification process are:

An optional preliminary audit to assess the company’s situation with respect to the requirements of the IFS standard in order to identify, through a gap analysis, strengths and potential areas for improvement;
A certification audit;
Issuance of the certificate and delivery of the audit report;
Annual surveillance audits;
Potential unannounced audits and inspections, undertaken directly by IFS inspectors.

Certiquality can perform integrated audits combining the IFS Food standard with the main food safety standards and regulations (ISO 9001, BRC, UNI 10854, ISO 22000, FSSC 22000, Global.G.A.P., product certification, ISO 22005).

Notification of incident

If an incident occurs that compromises the food safety of a product, including recall/withdrawal or non-compliance with a current food safety regulation, the organization must inform Certiquality within 3 working days, by sending the form "Notification of incident" at ritirierichiami@certiquality.it

Download the form "notification of incident"