Delivering a clear competitive advantage

Introduction

The steady increase in the take-up of certification schemes is helping Food Business Operators (FBOs) everywhere to provide safer and higher quality food to world markets.

While several third-party schemes are available, new research concludes that businesses with BRCGS certification have a clear competitive advantage.

A July 2021 review paper published by the Department of Management at Birkbeck, part of the University of London, reports that BRCGS certification results in improved compliance with industry standards and safer food for consumers.

Enabling improved performance

The research shows that BRCGS-certified FBOs perform better and report fewer non-compliances with regulation than both non-certified organisations and those operating other certification programmes.

The data behind the study was provided by the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) as part of its annual evaluation of the collaboration between BRCGS and the Dutch Regulator.

During its inspection regime for the 2015-2020 period, the Regulator monitored the results of the supervision of a number of industrial food production companies in the Netherlands. It recorded compliance performance against the food-associated regulations and whether businesses were certified to one of the recognised Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) third-party certification programmes.

Of the 20,142 industrial business-to-business and cold store FBOs analysed in this study, 15.48% (3,118) were certified to the BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety. A further 20.27% (4,083) of businesses were certified to other GFSI programmes, while 64.25% (12,941) weren’t certified at all.

Protecting business reputation and viability

Overall, the research concluded that businesses holding BRCGS certification required significantly fewer interventions for regulatory non-compliance than companies using other certification programmes or those operating without any third-party certification.

The benefits of BRCGS certification deliver a clear competitive advantage. In this study, FBOs operating to BRCGS certification were shown to be:

• 9% less likely than non-certified businesses to require a major intervention.

• 1% less likely than other GFSI-certified businesses to require a major intervention.

• 8% less likely than non-certified businesses to require any form of intervention.

• 3% less likely than other GFSI-certified businesses to require any form of intervention.