FSSC 22000 has published a new revision that will become mandatory on April 1, 2021. Learn what the background is and what changes you can expect below.

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) has updated its benchmarking requirements. This means that GFSI recognized food standards such as IFS, BRCGS and FSSC 22000 have to implement the new or changed GFSI requirements in their own standard in a timely manner. FSSC 22000 has now complied with the request and published version 5.1 on November 3, 2020.

Key changes of GFSI 2020 include requirements specific to multi-site certification, product design & development, and food safety culture. The FSSC Scheme has therefore been updated to ensure compliance with these changes. However, with regard to food safety culture, there are no new FSSC requirements, as the ISO 22000: 2018 standard already covers the main aspects of food safety culture. FSSC 22000 has published a guidance document that demonstrates how ISO 22000 and the requirements related to food safety culture are linked. You can download all documents for version 5.1 free of charge here.

Main Changes for Certified Sites

FSSC has published a version of the scheme in which all changes as compared with Version 5 are highlighted in red. This document is available here. While many changes are minor, some important changes are found in Section 2.5 – FSSC 22000 Additional Requirements:

  • Section 2.5.1 now also covers the management of purchased materials. For food chain categories C, D, I, G and K, there is now a requirement to have a documented procedure for procurement in emergency situations. They are also required to maintain a review process for product specifications, in order to ensure continued compliance with food safety, legal and customer requirements.
  • 5.2: Additional provision for unlabeled products
  • For all food chain Categories, there are new requirements in section 2.5.10, related to storage and warehousing
  • New requirements related to hazard control and the prevention of cross-contamination (only for food chain categories C &I)
  • For food chain categories C, D, G, I & K there is a new requirement to conduct routine (e.g. monthly) site inspections/PRP checks to verify that the production environment and processing equipment are maintained in a suitable condition (see 2.5.12).
  • For food chain categories C, D, E, F, I and K, a product design and development procedure shall be established, implemented and maintained for new products and changes to products or changes to the manufacturing process. Full details are available in clause 2.5.13.
  • For producers of feed, there is now a requirement to have a procedure to ensure that the health of personnel does not have an adverse effect on the feed production operations (2.5.14).
  • The timespan to close minor non-conformities has been reduced from three months to 28 calendar days after the last audit day. This means that the certification body must approve the corrective action plan and the evidence of the correction within this timeframe.

For all full overview of the changes, please consult the full document.

Requirements for Multi-Site Certification

The new clause 2.5.15 contains additional requirements for organizations that have chosen multi-site certification. These relate to the internal audit system and frequency, the resources for internal auditing, the qualifications of internal auditors, and the review of these internal audit reports.

Time schedule

The new version was published on November 3, 2020. The revision will become mandatory on April 1, 2021. By March 31, 2022, all sites must have had their audit against version 5.1.

Additional information

Contact us if you have any questions and sign up for our newsletter to receive regular updates!

Constanze Illner is Research & Communication Officer at DQS CFS GmbH