“Hygiene poor in area 3.” Eleven days later the finding comes back closed, and the action column reads “staff retrained”. Nobody can say which staff, what was wrong, or what the auditor actually saw. The finding was an opinion, so it got an opinion for an answer.
In short
- A food safety audit finding has three parts: the requirement, the evidence and the gap between them.
- Grade every finding as minor, major or critical against rules written down before the audit.
- Each finding needs an owner, a due date and an interim control that protects product until the fix lands.
- A correction fixes what was seen. A corrective action removes the cause so it does not come back.
- A finding can be challenged fairly on three grounds: the evidence, the criterion or the grade.
Writing findings this way is a trained skill. The Food Safety Inspections and Audit Readiness course (FS50, R1 699, online) drills it on three case study sites, and you finish with your own audit workbook in Excel.
What are the three parts of a food safety audit finding?
A finding that gets fixed states three things. The requirement: which clause, regulation or site procedure applies. The evidence: what was seen, where, when, and on which record, sample or photo. The gap: the specific way the evidence falls short of the requirement. Take away any one and the finding becomes an opinion.
The requirement is what most QCs leave out, because they know the rule so well it feels silly to write it. Write it anyway. A supervisor who reads “Cleaning procedure CL-07, section 4” cannot argue about whose standard this is.
Evidence must be something another person could go and check. A date and time. A line number. A document reference and revision. A count (“three of ten records sampled”). If it would not survive the question “how do you know”, it is not evidence yet.
The gap is one sentence that joins the two. It does not explain why it happened. That is the job of root cause analysis, and an auditor who guesses the cause usually sends the site to fix the wrong thing.
What does a weak finding look like next to a good one?
A weak finding uses judgement words such as poor, inadequate or not acceptable, names no requirement and gives no location, time or count. A good finding could be verified by a stranger tomorrow: it cites the criterion, records the observation and states the shortfall.
| Weak finding | The same finding, written to be fixed |
|---|---|
| Temperature records incomplete. | Procedure COLD-02 requires chiller 4 to be logged every four hours. The log for 1 to 7 September has 9 of 42 entries blank, all on night shift. Frequency not met. |
| Staff not following glass policy. | The brittle materials register must list every item in open product areas. A cracked acrylic clipboard was in use at the line 2 filler at 10:20 on 15 September and is not on the register (revision 6). An unlisted, damaged item was in an open product area. |
| Receiving checks inadequate. | Procedure REC-01 sets a maximum of 5 °C for chilled poultry at receipt. Delivery note 4471 (12 September) was accepted at a recorded 8.2 °C with no deviation form. Out of limit product was accepted with no decision record. |
The right hand column is longer. It is also the only one anyone can act on.
Worked example
Before (an invented training example): “Hygiene poor in area 3.”
Requirement: Cleaning procedure CL-07 requires the slicer blade guard on line 3 to be removed and cleaned at every changeover, and the pre operational check to be signed before restart.
Evidence: On 14 September at 06:40, before start up, dried product residue was seen on the underside of the line 3 slicer blade guard in the high care salad room (photo 14). The pre operational checklist was signed “clean” at 06:15.
Gap: A food contact part was not cleaned to procedure, and the pre operational check did not detect it.
Grade: Major under the site’s written rules, because a verification check failed on a food contact surface in high care. No product had been run.
Owner, date, interim control: Hygiene manager, corrective action due 28 September. Until then the QC, not the team leader, signs the line 3 pre operational check with the guard removed.
Try closing that one with “staff retrained”. It points at two things to investigate: the clean, and the check that passed it.
How should findings be graded as minor, major or critical?
Grade against rules that were written down before the audit started. A minor is an isolated lapse with no effect on product safety, a major is a substantial failure to meet a requirement or a control that has broken down, and a critical is a direct food safety or legal failure with product at risk now.
Certification schemes publish their own definitions, and they differ. For an internal programme you write your own, tight enough that two auditors would grade the same evidence the same way. Useful tests: is product affected, is it a pattern, did a check fail, is it a repeat.
Grading by mood is how a site ends up with forty minors a year and no priorities.
In the FS50 inspections and audit readiness training you grade findings by written rules inside a workbook that exports one Excel file with Plan, Results, Findings and Report sheets, yours to keep.
Start FS50 audit readiness training, R1 699
What is the difference between correction and corrective action?
A correction deals with the thing you found: re-clean the guard, quarantine the pallet, fill the gap under the door. A corrective action deals with the reason it happened, so that it does not happen again on another line next month. Every finding needs the first immediately and the second after a root cause analysis.
“Staff retrained” is sometimes a valid corrective action. Mostly it is what gets written when nobody asked why. If changeover time was cut to eight minutes, retraining changes nothing. Our post on corrective action and root cause analysis for audit findings covers the method.
Owner, date and interim control
Three fields turn a finding into a commitment. The owner is one named role with authority to make the change, never “production”. The date is a calendar date. The interim control is the one people forget: what protects product between today and the day the fix is verified. A part on six week lead time leaves a six week hole unless something temporary fills it.
How do you challenge an audit finding you disagree with?
Challenge a finding on one of three grounds: the evidence, the criterion or the grade. Do it at the closing meeting or through the formal route, with documents.
1
The evidence
The auditor sampled the wrong revision, misread a record, or missed a record that exists. Produce it.
2
The criterion
The clause cited does not require what the finding says, or it is outside the audit scope. Read it together.
3
The grade
The facts are agreed, but the grading rules point to a minor and the report says major. Show the rule.
“The last auditor never raised it” is not a ground, and using it costs you credibility you will need for the challenge that has merit. A finding written as requirement, evidence and gap is hard to challenge because there is nothing loose to pull on.
What can a year of your own findings tell you?
Put twelve months of internal findings in one sheet and sort them by area, by clause, by grade and by root cause. Patterns appear that no single audit shows: the same three clauses, one shift, one department, a root cause field that says “human error” forty times.
Look for repeats first. A finding raised twice usually means a corrective action was closed without being verified as effective. Then look at what was never found. A year with nothing against allergen changeovers means the area is excellent or nobody is looking.
It only works if the findings were written well in the first place. You cannot sort “hygiene poor” by clause. For how this feeds the audit programme, see our post on ISO 19011:2026 and food safety internal audits.
What does the Food Safety Inspections and Audit Readiness course cover, and what does it cost?
FS50 is about 9 hours online: 27 short lessons in 6 modules, built on ISO 19011:2026, for R1 699 per delegate. Module 4 covers findings, root cause and making the fix stick.
Course facts
| Course | Food Safety Inspections and Audit Readiness for QCs and HACCP Teams (FS50) |
|---|---|
| Provider | ASC Food Safety Training |
| What you leave with | Your own audit workbook in Excel, from an audit you carry out yourself, and a certificate of completion on passing |
| Level | Basic food safety or HACCP knowledge assumed. No audit experience needed |
| Time | About 9 hours, plus about half a working day for your own audit |
| Price | R1 699 per delegate |
| Format | Online, self paced, phone friendly. 27 lessons of 10 to 20 minutes, with worked cases and model answers in every lesson |
| Tools | Audit checklist builder, and an inspection and report workbook that exports to Excel |
| Assessment | 70 percent to pass. Knowledge checks, games, a proctored final and a workshop assignment: your own audit workbook and a 150 to 250 word note to the site manager |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion on passing. Not a lead auditor course |
| Who it is for | QCs and HACCP team members who inspect, audit internally and get audited |
Enrol in Food Safety Inspections and Audit Readiness, R1 699
Questions people ask before they enrol
How long does the FS50 course take?
Plan for about 9 hours of lessons and assessments, in 27 lessons of 10 to 20 minutes each, plus about half a working day to carry out your own audit for the workshop. It is self paced and phone friendly.
Do I need audit experience, and how is the course assessed?
No audit experience is needed, only basic food safety or HACCP knowledge. The pass mark is 70 percent. You get two attempts at each knowledge check, game and the proctored final, and three at the workshop assignment, which is marked automatically against visible criteria.
Will this course make me a registered auditor?
It will not, and it does not claim to. It is not a lead auditor course and does not register you as an auditor with any body. The next step after it is Internal and Supplier Auditing Practices at R3 500.
Does it suit my sector if I do not work in a factory?
The course uses three case study sites: a ready meal and salad factory, a citrus packhouse and a restaurant kitchen. It cites FSSC 22000, BRCGS Food Issue 9, ISO 22000:2018 and R638 by clause where they apply.
Can I buy the course from outside South Africa?
You can. The price is R1 699 per delegate, in rand. The course page shows an indicative equivalent in US dollars, euros and pounds, and payment settles in rand.
Pull out your last internal audit report and rewrite one finding as requirement, evidence and gap. If you cannot find the requirement, that is the skill the Food Safety Inspections and Audit Readiness online course was built to teach. One major nonconformity at a certification audit costs a root cause investigation, an evidence pack and management time. FS50 costs R1 699 and about 9 hours. Enrol now and run your own audit in the workshop. More reading is on the internal and supplier auditing training hub.
ISO 19011 and ISO 22000 are published by ISO, FSSC 22000 is owned by Foundation FSSC and BRCGS Food Safety by BRCGS. This course is an independent training product and is not approved or endorsed by any of them or by any certification body. Procedure numbers and findings above are invented examples.