Chain of Custody benchmarking

MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certificate holders now have confirmation of the option to combine future audits of their compliance with the MSC standard with audits of certain food safety standards, following the MSC's benchmarking project, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to MSC.

The project aimed to assess the scope for increasing efficiencies in the supply chain by combining audits of different food safety standards with MSC CoC audits. Seven food safety standards from the UK, USA, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands were analysed in order to identify the extent to which it would be possible to audit their respective requirements in combination with a MSC CoC audit.  The British Retail Consortium Global Food, Safe Quality Food, International Food Standards and Global Gap Aquaculture CoC standards were found to have a sufficient degree of equivalence for the purposes of a combined audit.

'We hope that the analysis we've completed and the checklists generated will generate efficiencies for CoC certificate holders and help them reduce their auditing costs.' Evi Mateboer, MSC Supply Chain Manager

Checklists are now available to facilitate a combined MSC audit with any of these [four] standards. Certifiers are not, however, required to combine audits: the decision to do so remains the certificate holder's.

Evi Mateboer, MSC Supply Chain Manager, said: ‘We are very proud to announce the results of the benchmarking project which was undertaken in recognition of the fact that a number of food safety standards have requirements in common with the MSC standard, but are often audited in isolation. We hope that the analysis we've completed and the checklists generated will generate efficiencies for CoC certificate holders and help them reduce their auditing costs.'