Implementation of BRCGS Issue 9 for Food Manufacturing

Implement BRCGS Issue 9 properly, once, with the evidence to prove it.

Most BRCGS training tells you what the Standard says. This course takes you through building the system it asks for. You work through all nine sections of the Global Standard Food Safety Issue 9 in clause order, and at every stage you build the documented information rather than read about it.

Issue 9 was published on 1 August 2022 and it is what your certification body audits you against today. Issue 10 is still in development with no published release date, so nothing in this course is written against requirements that do not yet exist.

What is in it

One hundred and thirty six lessons across thirteen modules, twenty four hours of structured work. Module 1 is the Standard itself, the audit protocol, the three audit programmes, the grading table and a twelve month implementation roadmap for a South African site. Modules 2 to 10 implement Sections 1 to 9 clause by clause: senior management commitment and the food safety culture plan, the HACCP food safety plan across all twelve Codex steps, the management system, site standards, product control, process control, personnel, production risk zones and traded products.

Every clause lesson answers the same four questions in the same order: what the clause asks for, how you implement it, what the auditor asks to see on the day, and where sites actually fail. Documents are named. Frequencies and owners are given. Nothing is left as “the site shall have a procedure”.

The twelve fundamentals, treated as fundamental

Clauses 1.1, 2, 3.4, 3.5.1, 3.7, 3.9, 4.3, 4.11, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2 and 7.1 are fundamental requirements. A major non-conformity against any one of them means no certificate at that audit, whatever the rest of the score looks like. Five of them sit in Section 3 alone. This course flags every one of them and builds them first.

Tools, not templates

The food safety plan builder walks Section 2 in clause order, from the team and the product description through to the HACCP control chart, and it will not let you export until every significant hazard has a control measure, every critical control point has a measurable critical limit, every limit has its validation evidence, and every CCP has monitoring, a corrective action and a product disposition. The risk assessment engine runs fifteen registers on a five by five matrix, covering every risk assessment Issue 9 demands by name: food defence, food fraud, allergens, glass and brittle plastic, zoning, environmental monitoring, supplier approval, water, foreign body detection, chemicals, pests, storage and transport, maintenance, the high risk and high care zone decision and traded products. Both export to reports and CSV files laid out the way an auditor expects, and both save your work as you go.

Two exercises that behave like an audit

You audit a document set from a fictional Gqeberha ready meal and cooked meat site: twelve records, nine real failures and three decoys that look wrong and are compliant. For each one you decide whether it is a finding, cite the clause and grade it critical, major or minor. Then you walk the production floor and do the same across six scenes. The answer keys give the grade and the reasoning for the grade, not just the level.

The assessment is automated and it is not a memory test

One hundred and fifty questions in four parts, one hundred and eighty marks. Parts 1 to 3 test the requirements at forty questions each. Part 4 is six case studies at thirty questions and double marks: a cook step deviation discovered after despatch, an allergen mis-declaration that reached a consumer, an emergency raw material purchase outside the approval process, three findings you have to grade, a management review with inputs missing, and a Listeria trend in a high care zone. The pass mark is 70 per cent and you have three attempts at each part. Every question is marked the moment you submit and every answer carries an explanation naming the clause that settles it, so a wrong answer teaches you something. Twenty assessments in all, including a warm up game and a knowledge check in every module.

Who it is for

Food safety and quality managers, FSMS coordinators and HACCP team leaders implementing or maintaining Issue 9, internal auditors who need to audit against it, and consultants who implement it for clients. You need a working knowledge of food safety in a manufacturing environment. You do not need prior BRCGS experience.

Pricing

The course is R5,500, reduced from R6,950. No VAT is charged. Three attempts at each assessed part, a pass mark of 70 per cent, and a downloadable certificate on completion.