8/3/2019 General IFS Newsletter on IFS Food Review 1 1311252287 UK

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International Featured Standards

IFS Newsletter, July 2011

IFS Newsletter, July 2011Information about review process of IFS Food version 5

and publication of IFS Food version 6

IFS Food version 5 review process began at the end of 2010. Main objectives of the review processwere to:- include all doctrines in the standard,- delete redundancies (no double-dipping),- improve, where necessary, wording of requirements,- comply with new GFSI Guidance Document version 6,- improve rules for determining audit duration.

In February 2011, an on-line satisfaction questionnaire about version 5 was sent to all IFS users. Theanswers received have been used as improvement tools for the review.After evaluation of the questionnaires and full review of all inputs addressed to IFS offices, nationaland international technical working groups finalised a first draft of IFS Food version 6 at end of June.

As it was a strong wish of IFS to share expertise and to reach the common target to get safe andgood quality products, the new IFS Food version 6 has been revised with full and activeinvolvement of certification bodies, retailers and industry, attending all working groups andcoming from all over the world. For the first time, experts from North America participated deeplyin the review process.

Main changes in the IFS Food version 6:- A slightly revised scoring system will be implemented to better identify companies

implementing best practices,- Clear rules for determining audit duration have been created, based on a pragmatic

calculation tool, which will provide the minimum mandatory audit duration to be applied by allcertification bodies,

- IFS Integrity Program, which was created in 2010 to monitor performance of certification

bodies and of auditors, will be described in the new audit protocol,- As IFS Food is not only a food safety but also a quality standard, version 6 will include more

quality requirements (e.g. nutritional analyses, more requirements on weight control, morerequirements on the quality/quantity of information provided on labelling, etc.),

- In order to comply with GFSI Guidance document version 6, food defence requirements willbe introduced in IFS Food audit check-list. Exhaustive guidelines will also be developed inorder to help companies implement those requirements, based on risk assessment and most of all on legislation of destination country.

- IFS auditors will be approved for products and technology scopes. Technology scopes arenewly introduced to improve auditors expertise even more on products and processes.

Test audits will be performed during the Summer in different countries worldwide and in companiesproducing different kinds of products.

IFS Food version 6 is aimed to be published beginning of 2012 for a mandatory implementation 6months later. If you would like to get more information on the review process, please do not hesitateto contact IFS offices.