BRC AGENTS & BROKERS Certification Overview

• The customer has submitted to voluntary assessment (audit) according to defined criteria
  (certification standard).
• A certificate and/or the authorisation to use a certification mark is only issued if the assessment (audit) does not reveal any major nonconformities with the requirements of the certification standard.
• Certificates and/or certification marks are valid for a restricted period of time. Interested parties can check the validity of individual certificates in the certificate database of TÜV SÜD Management Service GmbH or the standard owner (www.brcdirectory.com).
• To maintain certificate validity, the certificate holder must annually complete an announced audit with a positive result.
• Unannounced audits may be conducted in specific cases or at the request of the certified company.
• According to the standard owner’s requirements, communication of BRC AGENTS & BROKERS certification is restricted to B2B communication. Communication to consumers is not permitted.

Independent and qualified experts (auditors) will apply the following auditing techniques:

• Document review
  Review of documentation such as documented procedures, work instructions
  Inspection of recipes and specifications
  Evaluation of food labelling
  Specific traceability tests
  Evaluation of analysis results
  
  
• On-site audit
  Interviews with the employees of the organization
  e.g. department specific tasks such as Purchasing and Quality Management

Audits are always based on sampling. Given this, it is not possible to inspect every single product or every single production process. TÜV SÜD certification thus cannot give a 100% guarantee that all food products of a certified company are free from nonconformities, or that the organisation meets the criteria of the standard at all times even though this is one of the key objectives of the standard BRC AGENTS & BROKERS.