Service area
GFSI & Certification Readiness
SQF, BRCGS, FSSC 22000 and IFS preparation — without pretending we issue the certificate.
- Service lines
- 10 listed
- Delivery
- Onsite and remote
- Coverage
- United States
Overview
What this covers
GFSI does not certify anyone. It benchmarks schemes — SQF, BRCGS, FSSC 22000, IFS and others — and your certificate comes from an accredited certification body auditing you against a specific issue and module of one of those standards. Which scheme is right for you depends on what your customers accept, your product categories, and how much system documentation your team can realistically maintain.
We help you choose deliberately, then close the gap. That means building or reworking the management system, the internal audit program and the verification records; training the people who will host the audit; and running a pre-assessment audit against the current issue of the standard so the first non-conformance you see is one of ours, not the certification body's.
Who this is for
- Manufacturers whose retail or foodservice customer has set a GFSI certification deadline
- Facilities moving from an unaudited state to a first certification, or migrating between schemes
- Certified sites recovering from major non-conformances or a downgraded audit rating
- Storage, distribution and packaging operations in scope for a relevant module of a GFSI-benchmarked scheme
- Companies pursuing organic certification, or preparing a facility for kosher or halal certification requirements alongside food safety certification
GFSI & Certification services
- SQF
- BRCGS
- FSSC 22000
- IFS
- GlobalG.A.P. when applicable
- Organic certification
- Kosher/Halal preparation where appropriate
- Certification readiness assessments
- Internal audits
- Pre-assessment audits
Engagements are scoped to what applies to your operation. Where a listed service is not relevant to your products, processes or jurisdiction, we will say so.
How an engagement runs
Sequenced so each step earns the next.
Nothing gets written before the operation is verified, and nothing is declared complete before it has been tested against the standard it will be judged by.
Scheme selection and scope definition
An honest comparison of the schemes your customers accept against your product categories, site complexity and documentation capacity — including the ongoing maintenance cost, which is where most first-time certifications get painful.
Readiness assessment
A clause-by-clause gap assessment against the current issue of the chosen standard, with each gap tied to an owner, an artefact and a date. This is the document that tells you whether your target audit date is realistic.
System and documentation build
Management commitment and review, document control, HACCP or food safety plan integration, verification and validation, complaint and incident handling, and the records that demonstrate the system has been operating — not merely written.
Internal auditor training and internal audit cycle
Every GFSI scheme requires a functioning internal audit program. We train your internal auditors to write findings that are specific and evidence-based, and we run the first cycle alongside them.
Pre-assessment audit
A full mock audit under audit conditions — opening meeting, document review, floor verification, closing meeting with graded findings — so your team has already been through the day once. Certification decisions remain solely with the accredited certification body.
Regulatory basis
The requirements behind the work.
Applicability depends on your products, processes, size and jurisdiction. Exemptions and modified requirements exist throughout these rules, and part of the engagement is establishing which apply to you.
Summaries below are educational and simplified. They are not legal advice and do not replace the text of the regulation or guidance from your regulatory authority or counsel.
- SQF Food Safety Code (current edition)
- Administered by the SQF Institute, a division of FMI. Module and level selection depend on your sector and whether you pursue the Food Safety or Quality code.
- BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety (current issue)
- Includes unannounced audit options and a graded outcome. Fundamental clauses carry disproportionate weight in the grading, which shapes where preparation effort belongs.
- FSSC 22000 (current version)
- Built on ISO 22000 plus sector-specific prerequisite programme standards from the ISO/TS 22002 series and additional FSSC requirements. Suits organisations that already run an ISO-style management system.
- IFS Food (current version)
- Widely required by European retail customers; relevant to U.S. manufacturers exporting into those supply chains.
- USDA National Organic Program — 7 CFR Part 205
- Organic certification is issued by a USDA-accredited certifying agent. Handler and processor requirements, including the organic system plan, differ from food safety scheme requirements and are audited separately.
Applied by industry
How this looks in practice.
The same regulatory framework produces very different programs depending on the operation it lands in.
- Food ManufacturersFDA inspection, customer audits and GFSI certification all test the same underlying system. We build it once, properly, so each of those reviews draws on the same evidence.
- Private Label BrandsYour name is on the package and someone else's plant made it. Oversight of the co-manufacturer is the whole job, and a certificate on file is not oversight.
- WarehousesStorage facilities are judged on pest control, temperature integrity, segregation and traceability. Third-party warehouses are increasingly audited as hard as manufacturers.
- DistributorsDistributors rarely create hazards, but they decide whether one spreads or stops. Receiving discipline and lot-level traceability are the two controls that matter most.
- Dietary Supplement ManufacturersPart 111 is built on written specifications and a quality unit with real authority. Most findings trace to a specification that was never established or data that never reached the batch record.
Questions we get asked
GFSI & Certification — common questions
Does hiring SURU improve our chance of certification?
It improves your preparation. It cannot influence the audit decision, and we would not want it to — a certificate that does not reflect a working system is a liability, not an asset. We are independent of every certification body, receive no referral arrangement for placing you with one, and cannot certify, accredit or approve anything ourselves.
Which scheme should we choose?
Start with what your customers accept in writing, because that constraint usually decides it. Beyond that, SQF tends to suit sites wanting a staged path and strong U.S. retail acceptance, BRCGS suits sites comfortable with a graded and heavily documented standard, FSSC 22000 fits organisations already running ISO management systems, and IFS matters most for European retail supply chains. We will give you a recommendation with reasoning rather than a default answer.
How long does readiness usually take?
It depends far more on your starting point and internal bandwidth than on the standard. A facility with functioning prerequisite programs and complete records is in a different position from one starting with no document control. We give you a dated plan after the readiness assessment rather than a number before it, and we will tell you if a target audit date is not achievable.
Related
Other practice areas
FDA & FSMA Compliance
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act moved the regulatory burden from reacting to contamination to proving you prevented it. We build the hazard analysis, preventive controls, supplier verification and records systems that carry that burden — and we prepare your team for the inspection that tests them.
Read moreHACCP
A HACCP plan is only worth what its critical limits can be defended with. We develop, rebuild and independently review plans across seafood, juice, retail and specialized processes — including the variance and validation documentation that regulators ask for first.
Read moreDietary Supplements
Part 111 is a specification-driven rule. Most observations we see trace back to a specification that was never established, an identity test that was never performed, or a batch record that a quality unit signed without the supporting data attached.
Read more
GFSI & Certification
Tell us what you need to be ready for.
Send the operation, the products and the deadline. We will tell you which parts of gfsi & certification apply to you and what it takes to be ready — in writing, before you commit.
Direct contact
- info@surucompliance.com
- 651-329-4787
- Serving food businesses nationwide, onsite and remotely.
SURU Compliance is a regulatory consulting practice. We are not a government agency, a certification body, or a law firm, and we do not provide legal advice or guarantee regulatory outcomes.