In recent years, accreditation has grown, particularly for privately owned standards schemes.

The German company FoodPLUS GmbH pioneered a group of European retailers responding to various food industry scandals in the 1990s. In 1997, the newly founded Euro-Retailer Produce Work Group Good Agricultural Practice (EurepGAP) commissioned experts to develop new standards for good agriculture practices. This gave rise to the certification system known today as GLOBALG.A.P.(1)

The GLOBALG.A.P. Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA), contains 16 standards, covering all forms of agricultural, aquaculture (aquaculture and mariculture) and livestock production. The GLOBALG.A.P. IFA extends its scope through different add-on modules offering more comprehensive coverage on specific topics that provide buyers with specific assurance based on their interests and preferences. Among the main ones are the GLOBALG.A.P. Risk Assessment on Social Practice (GRASP) add-on module, the SPRING add-on module for responsible water management in crop production processes, the FSMA PSR add-on module addressing FDA requirements for importing fruit and vegetable products into the US market, among others.(2)

GLOBALG.A.P. IFA can be certified by accredited conformity assessment bodies certifying agricultural products. The GLOBALG.A.P. scheme must be accredited under the ISO/IEC 17065 accreditation scheme standard, the application of which is recognised worldwide through a Multilateral Agreement of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF-MLA).(3)

The following table shows that GLOBALG.A.P. recently added another certification scheme, Produce Handling Assurance (PHA), in the IAF MLA.(3)

Other private scheme owners from the food industry, such as the German IFS (International Featured Standards) (4) or BRC (British Retail Consortium), have followed suit and applied ISO/IEC 17065 for the certification bodies they recognise (5). The IAF MLA also provides the basis here.

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Scheme Owner	Country	Accreditation Activity (Level 2)	Standard(Level 3)	Certification Scheme (Level 4)	IAF MLA signed
FoodPLUS GmbH	Germany	Product Certification	ISO/IEC 17065	GLOBALG.A.P.  Integrated farm assurance IFA	Since 2004
	Germany	Product Certification	ISO/IEC 17065	GLOBALG.A.P. Produce Handling Assurance (PHA)	September 2023
IFS Management GmbH, International Featured Standards	Germany	Product Certification	ISO/IEC 17065	IFS Food, IFS Broker, IFS Logistics and IFS PACsecure.	April 2023
BRC Trading Ltd.	United Kingdom	Product Certification (various)	ISO/IEC 17065	BRCGS Global Standards for Food Safety (various schemes)	May 2023
FSCC 22000, Foundation Food Safety System Certification 22000	The Netherlands	Management System Certification	ISO/IEC 17021-1	FSSC 22000	March 2021
FAMI-QS, Feed Additives and Pre-mixtures Quality System	Belgium	Management System Certification	ISO/IEC 17021-1	FAMI-QS Certification Scheme	2017
IAQG, International Aerospace Quality Group	Belgium	Management System Certification	ISO/IEC 17021-1	IAQG ICOP (Industry Controlled Other Party) certification scheme transition to 9104-1	June 2023
IPC, International Personnel Certification Association	USA	Certification of Persons	ISO/IEC 17024	IPC Management System Auditors	2016
ICAO, International Civil Aviation Organisation	Canada	Validation and Verification	ISO 14065	Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) certification scheme	2021

As the table shows, the scope of the IAF MLA is no longer limited to product certification alone. The Dutch Foundation FSSC 22000, for example, has developed its own food management system based on the specifications for the accreditation of quality management systems following ISO/IEC 17021-1 and the ISO 22000 standard (6). At the same time, FSSC 22000 is limited to sector-specific applications and introduces additional requirements.

FAMI-QS is a preeminent global Quality and Feed Safety Management System for Specialty Feed Ingredients in the same area. A specialty feed ingredient is defined as any intentionally added ingredient not generally consumed as feed by itself, whether it has nutritional value, that affects the characteristics of feed or animal products. The certificate addresses safety, quality, and regulatory compliance to minimise hazards and ensure specialty feed ingredients’ safe and legal placement on the market. FAMI-QS is operating under IAF MLA.

Outside the food sector, private standard owners from the aerospace industry and the area of personal certification use the IAF MLA. For example, the Belgian IAQG, International Aerospace Quality Group, uses the accreditation for the certification of Management System Certification according to ISO/IEC 17021-1,(7) the Canadian-based UN organisation ICAO, International Civil Aviation Organisation, accredits certification bodies for its Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA)(8) certification scheme according to ISO 14065, and the IPC, International Personnel Certification Association,(9) uses ISO/IEC 17024 for its Management System Auditors.

For a better understanding, the IAF MLA distinguishes between five levels:(10)

• IAF MLA Level 1 – ISO/IEC 17011 specifies the criteria for accreditation bodies.
• IAF MLA Level 2 – Accreditation activities.
• IAF MLA Level 3 – IAF-endorsed generic normative documents used by accreditation bodies.
• IAF MLA Level 4 – IAF-endorsed sector-specific normative documents used by accreditation bodies.
• IAF MLA Level 5 – IAF-endorsed normative documents used by conformity assessment bodies.

All private standardization schemes are based on ISO and IEC standards for accreditation and conformity assessment (levels 1 to 3). At the same time, they specify requirements at levels 4 and 5, i.e. they are sector-specific normative documents used by accreditation and conformity assessment bodies. What all schemes have in common is that they are freely applicable. At the same time, the users of these private standard systems require corresponding certificates to trade with the affiliated retailers and buyers.

Global Food Safety Initiative

The emergence of various private standards in food safety prompted food retailers and manufacturers to join forces in a Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) action alliance. In 2000, they founded the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), which promotes the mutual acceptance of various food safety certification programs throughout the industry. The aim was to prevent the mutual undercutting of standards (race-to-the-bottom) and unnecessary costs for duplicate certifications.(11)

In this respect, GFSI refrains from setting up its own certification programme but instead carries out benchmarking between the certification schemes recognised by GFSI. GFSI’s most essential requirement is that certification bodies working with GFSI-recognised certification schemes are accredited to ISO/IEC 17065 or ISO/IEC 17021. These standards cover avoiding conflicts of interest, handling customer information, and personnel qualification. In addition, certification bodies must be assessed by accreditation bodies that are members of the IAF and signatories to the IAF MLA.

Only GLOBALG.A.P., IFS Food, and BRC Global Standards signed their own MoU with IAF among the 13 GFSI-recognised certification program owners. The remaining ten certification programs also require their certification bodies to be accredited to ISO/IEC 17065 or ISO/IEC 17021.

Overall, the GFSI benchmarking attempts to create more transparency within the various competing certification schemes in the food safety sector.

Private Certification scheme in numbers

To gain an impression of using privately owned certification systems, we have compiled data from GLOBALG.A.P., FSSC, and BRC and compared this with the data from IAF. The IAF has 95 accreditation bodies, 46 of which work with GLOBALG.A.P. and 43 with FSSC. No corresponding information was available on the BRC website.

IAF CertSeach lists 1,587 accredited certification bodies for management systems. Of these, 126 are active for FSSC and 13 for BRC. GLOBALG.A.P., in turn, works with 180+ product certification bodies. Unfortunately, IAF does not report any figures for this type of certification body.(12)

The figures for certifications cannot be compared directly due to different metrics. IAF reports the number of 1,200,000+ management system certifications, whereas GLOBALG.A.P. reports 195,000+ and FSSC 35,000+ certified organisations and BRC 22,000 certified sites.(2)

Global numbers	GLOBALG.A.P.	FSSC	BRC	FAMI	IAF
Accreditation bodies	46	43	No data	9	95
Certification Bodies	180+	126	13	25	1,587
Certified Organizations	195.000+	35.030	No data	No data	No data
Certified sites	No data	No data	22.000	1.674	No data
Certifications	No data	No data	No data	No data	1,265,416 (7)

Conclusions

The information compiled in this blog post shows the increasing importance of privately owned certification schemes. Starting with food safety and, more recently, in aerospace, private owners increasingly use internationally recognised accreditation to increase confidence in certifications.

Accreditation of private certification schemes is a growing source of income for accreditation bodies. Most private standard scheme owners have headquarters in Europe and use European accreditation bodies. ABs in other parts of the world can offer their services to certification bodies operating in their countries. Private businesses in developing countries can also establish their own schemes and use domestic accreditation services for their certification bodies.

The search on the websites of the private standard owners showed considerable data availability. With the IAF and the Regional Accreditation Groups, an attempt should be made to systematically compile and publish this data. On this basis, developing private certifications as part of the quality infrastructure could be captured, analysed, and used for strategic decision-making.

References

1. GLOBALG.A.P., History (recuperado de 31/03/24)
2. GLOBALG.A.P. Risk Assessment on Social Practice (GRASP), (accessed 31/03/24)
3. IAF, IAF and GLOBALG.A.P. Sign Agreement, 13/09/2023, (accessed 31/03/24)
4. IFS, International Featured Standard, (accessed 31/03/24)
5. IAF, IAF and BRCGS Sign Scheme Endorsement Agreement, 09/03/2023
6. FSSC, FSSC provides trust and delivers impact to the consumer goods industry, (accessed 31/03/24)
7. IAQG, IAF endorses the IAQG certification scheme in memorandum of understanding, 27/06/23
8. ICAO, ICAO and IAF sign MoU for the provision of verification training for ICAO’s CORSIA, 17/12/2019
9. IAF, IPC : International Personnel Certification Association, 02/12/20
10. IAF, Scopes (accessed 31/03/24)
11. GFSI, Achieving a GFSI-recognized certificate (accessed 31/03/24)
12. IAF CertSearch, IAF CertSearch Network of Global Accredited Certification, (accessed 31/03/24) 

Picture from the Food Magazine