Food Safety Inspections and Audit Readiness for QCs and HACCP Teams

Many QCs are handed a clipboard and told to do the monthly inspection. Nobody shows them how. Then the certification auditor arrives and finds in a morning what twelve monthly inspections did not.

FS50 is online internal audit and inspection training for QCs, HACCP team members and supervisors in South African food plants. In about 9 hours of lessons and assessments you learn to look at an area the way an auditor does, run an internal audit to ISO 19011:2026, write a finding that survives the closing meeting, and sit in the auditee’s chair without talking yourself into a nonconformity. You finish by doing a real audit, on your own site or on our case study, and you keep the workbook. Allow about half a working day on top for your own audit.

Who this is for

• Quality controllers and QA officers who do GMP, hygiene and fabrication inspections.
• HACCP and food safety team members who have been put on the internal audit programme.
• Production, hygiene and warehouse supervisors who escort auditors and answer for their area.
• Anyone getting a site ready for FSSC 22000, BRCGS, a retailer audit or an R638 inspection.

It works in any sector: meat, dairy, bakery, beverages, fresh produce, packhouses and catering. You do not need to be certified. If R638 is your only standard, you audit against R638 and your own procedures. It is not a lead auditor course and does not register you as an auditor with any body. Basic food safety or HACCP knowledge is assumed. No audit experience is needed.

What you will be able to do

• Tell an inspection from an audit, and know which one the situation calls for.
• Write the objective, scope and criteria for an audit, and a one page audit plan.
• Build a risk-based checklist where every point traces to a procedure, a clause or a regulation.
• Collect evidence three ways, ask, watch and read, and know when what you were told is still only a lead.
• Write a nonconformity as requirement, evidence and gap, grade it by written rules, and give it an owner, a date and an interim control.
• Write a conclusion that answers the question the audit was set up to answer.
• Get an area and its records ready for an unannounced visit, without backfilling anything.
• Challenge a finding on the three grounds that work: the evidence, the criterion or the grade.

What is in the course

• 27 lessons in 6 modules, 10 to 20 minutes each, written for a phone as much as a desk.
• Worked cases with model answers in every lesson.
• Audit checklist builder. You enter the objective, scope, period and criteria, then at least fifteen points with zone, criterion, method and risk. It refuses closed questions and will not export until every gap is fixed.
• Inspection and report workbook. You record one of four results and the evidence for every point, write each finding as requirement, evidence and gap, grade it, give it an owner and a date, and write the conclusion. It exports one Excel file with Plan, Results, Findings and Report sheets, and that file is yours to keep and reuse on site.
• Three case study sites, a ready meal and salad factory, a citrus packhouse and a restaurant kitchen, so you can complete everything even if you are between jobs.
• A knowledge check and a game in every module, a final assessment, and a marked workshop assignment.
• Built on ISO 19011:2026, the current edition, with FSSC 22000, BRCGS Food Issue 9, ISO 22000:2018 and R638 cited by clause where they apply.

How you are assessed

70 percent to pass every assessment. Two attempts at each knowledge check, game and the proctored final assessment, three at the workshop assignment. The workshop assignment is your own audit workbook and a 150 to 250 word note to the site manager. It is marked automatically against criteria you can see before you start, so you know before you upload where the marks are. Pass everything and your ASC certificate of completion is ready to download once you have left a short course review.

Where it fits

FS50 is the practical foundation. When you are ready to manage the whole audit programme and audit your suppliers, carry on to Internal and Supplier Auditing Practices based on FSMS.

What it costs, and what a missed finding costs

R1,699 per delegate. A single major at a certification audit usually costs more than that in management time before anything has been fixed, and a suspended certificate can cost a customer. The cheapest place to find a problem is your own internal audit, done by somebody who knows how. It is also less than half the price of the 20 hour auditor course, and it is the part most QCs need first.

R1,699 per delegate. Enrol and start today. More reading: how to prepare for a food safety audit in South Africa, what changed in ISO 19011:2026, and all our auditing training.