Preparing for a BRCGS audit without losing three months to it

What the auditor is actually doing

An auditor is not marking your folders. They are testing whether what the documents claim is what the factory does. Almost every question is a version of the same question: show me.

• Document review — the system on paper, including HACCP, procedures, specifications and records.
• Site tour — a long, detailed walk covering fabric, flow, segregation, hygiene practices and staff behaviour, with questions to whoever is on the line.
• Vertical audits — one product traced from raw material through to despatch, pulling every record that touched it.
• Traceability and mass balance — usually against the clock, both directions.
• Closing meeting — findings, grades, and the corrective action timescales you are then held to.

Where non-conformities usually come from

In my experience the same handful of areas account for most findings, and none of them can be fixed in the week before the audit.

• Corrective actions closed without a root cause, or closed with no check that the fix held.
• Internal audit programme incomplete, or carried out by someone auditing their own area.
• Validation missing for a critical control — the limit is monitored but never proven.
• Environmental monitoring results filed without trend analysis or action limits.
• Calibration lapsed on something that matters, usually a probe or a metal detector check piece.
• Records completed in batches after the event, which the dates give away immediately.
• Management review that records attendance but no decisions.
• Allergen cleaning validated once, years ago, on a product mix that has since changed.
• Label version control — artwork approved informally, or an old version still in circulation.
• Staff who cannot explain the control they operate, even though the training record exists.

A twelve-week countdown

Weeks 12–10 — find out where you are

• Gap analysis against the current issue of the standard, scored honestly.
• Confirm audit scope, product categories and whether it is announced or unannounced.
• Restart anything time-dependent immediately: internal audits, environmental monitoring, traceability challenges, calibration.
• Get any capital or structural work quoted and booked now, not later.

Weeks 9–7 — rebuild the management layer

• Root cause analysis applied to every open and recently closed action.
• Complaint and non-conformity trending, with actions that visibly follow from the trend.
• Document and record control tidied: versions, issue dates, obsolete copies withdrawn.
• HACCP review with validation evidence attached to each critical control.
• Supplier approval and specifications brought current, including any new raw materials.

Weeks 6–4 — the factory floor

• Walk the site as an auditor would, in production, and log what you see rather than what you know.
• Fabric, seals, damaged surfaces, high-level cleaning, drainage, pest proofing.
• Glass and hard plastic register verified against reality.
• Segregation and flow — people, product, waste, packaging.
• Allergen controls and cleaning validation against the current product mix.

Weeks 3–2 — the people

• Brief every shift on what the audit is and what will be asked.
• Line-side questions practised: what is your CCP, what do you do if it fails, who do you tell, where is the allergen information.
• Confirm who hosts, who covers the floor, and who pulls records — with named cover for absence.
• Training records current for anyone who has changed role.

Final week — dry run, not a deep clean

• Full internal dry run: document review, tour and a timed traceability exercise.
• Two vertical audits on different products, including one that changed recently.
• Records for the last three months checked for gaps rather than for tidiness.
• Everything on the corrective action log either closed with evidence or given a credible date.

If your audit is unannounced

Preparation stops being a project and becomes a routine. The practical tests are simple: could you host an auditor with an hour's notice, on your busiest shift, with your most junior competent person on the floor? Are today's records complete right now? Is the document set current today rather than current at the last booking?

Sites that pass unannounced audits comfortably tend to run a short daily and weekly verification routine — a supervisor check on records, a walk of one area, one traceability question a week. It is far less work than the alternative.

After the audit

Corrective action deadlines are tight and evidence-based, so close findings with root cause and proof rather than promises. Then put the findings into your internal audit and management review cycle, so next year's audit starts from a system that improved rather than one that recovered.