QS. Your Quality Scheme for Food

Certification:
Product certification / Voluntary assessment

Test standard:
Quality and certification provisions defined by the standard owner for the respective product area (www.q-s.de)

Standard owner:
QS Qualität und Sicherheit GmbH

What does the standard “QS. Your quality scheme for food” cover?

The QS quality scheme for food is a quality assurance scheme for fresh food from farm to shop. It includes requirements for controls, guarantees of origin and food labelling. The scheme applies to sectors such as:

• Feed
• Animal husbandry / Transport
• Meat
• Food retail
• Wholesale
• Logistics
• Production of fruit, vegetables and potatoes
• Preparation/processing of fruit, vegetables and potatoes

Quality assurance within the QS quality scheme for food is based on three interacting inspection levels. The first is self-assessment by the companies. Here, the companies themselves ensure that they check and document all requirements imposed on them. The second level of the QS scheme comprises two essential building blocks: third-party checks (audit) of the companies by qualified auditors, and the companies’ participation in the respective monitoring programmes. “Auditing of the auditor” by the standard owner makes up the third level, and covers assessment of certification bodies, auditors and laboratories.