Latest Information on GFSI Recognized HACCP Schemes

Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Guidance Document Sixth Edition

The Board of the Foundation for Food Safety Certification, the legal owner of the Dutch HACCP scheme, has decided not to submit the Dutch HACCP scheme for benchmarking against the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Guidance Document Sixth Edition.

The Dutch HACCP scheme first achieved recognition by GFSI in 2003, when the requirements laid out in Version 2 of the Dutch HACCP scheme were considered to be equivalent to the requirements set out in the GFSI Guidance Document Third Edition. Updated versions of the Dutch HACCP scheme were resubmitted against the Fourth (2005) and Fifth Editions (2008) of the GFSI Guidance Document, and each time the

benchmarking committee and the GFSI Board recognized the alignment of the food safety elements of the Dutch HACCP scheme with the GFSI Guidance Document requirements.

Following a consultation with the Dutch HACCP Board of Experts, the Board of the Foundation for Food Safety Certification decided not to resubmit the scheme for benchmarking to GFSI due to the new far reaching requirements in the GFSI Guidance Document Sixth Edition. The Foundation will focus on the management of the FSSC 22000 scheme which they also own and which is one of the 10 recognized GFSI schemes.

This HACCP Certification scheme will be rewritten with a focus on small and medium-size organizations. The scheme will once again become a pure HACCP certification scheme based on the Codex Alimentarius principles. This will allow organizations to use the HACCP scheme as a starting point before later becoming certified against a GFSI recognized scheme.

Dutch HACCP Option B certificates that are still in circulation in 2012 will be accepted as valid against the GFSI Guidance Document Fifth Edition during that year. However any certificates issued after 1 January 2012 will not be considered to have been issued against a GFSI-recognized scheme.

The Global Food Safety Initiative Foundation Board Chairman, Jürgen Matern, stated that “this will have a positive effect on the further harmonization of food safety schemes, as the companies in the marketplace ultimately determine which schemes are most relevant to their businesses’.

Source: GFSI