FEDEMCO held a conference aimed at the implementation of the BRC “packaging” standard at the NH Center hotel in Valencia, given the growing demand and implementation of the food version of this food safety certificate among fruit and vegetable packers.
The event, held last Thursday, July 7, was attended by more than twenty professionals from the sector from 15 companies, and with speakers from the Quality & Adviser consultancy and the SGS certifier.
Fernando Trénor, director of FEDEMCO, made a presentation of the Federation's initiatives in advancing the wooden packaging sector towards food safety requirements. He highlighted those relating to the legal framework in Spain and Europe, especially regarding health registration, traceability, HACCP, good practices, non-migration, specific measures, etc. Also, how FEDEMCO has responded over the last 25 years to the information and training needs of companies.
Next, Ana Pérez, auditor-consultant at Quality & Adviser, gave a presentation on food safety standardization, the market situation, its advantages and disadvantages. Thus, he underlined the positioning of the different standards (IFS, BRC, FSSC 22000, UNE-EN ISO 22000) within their similarity in terms of the field of application. Pérez defended that in a context of high demand in terms of safety by the legislative framework, the food sector, distribution and consumers, its implementation represents a prestige for the company, allows its better approval, continuous improvement, as well as reduce the time and resources dedicated to giving your agreement, avoiding external audits.
After a coffee break, Carina Mazzuz, auditor-consultant and technical director of Quality & Adviser defended the key principles for the successful implementation of a food safety standard in companies. He focused on describing in detail the main requirements and procedures of BRC “packaging”, also referring to the IFS “PACsecure” within the framework of the standards recognized by the “Global Food Safety Initiative” (GFSI).
Finally, Ana Viñado, commercial director of the East region of SGS, highlighted the important implementation of BRC in the European market, emphasizing the changes of version 5 with respect to the previous one, as well as the different scopes, programs, levels of conformity and options of certification of its audits, focused on promoting differentiation and improvement.
