Moving from SALSA to BRCGS: what actually changes

Why sites make the move

Nine times out of ten, nobody wakes up wanting BRCGS. A customer asks for it. A retailer listing, a larger manufacturer or a foodservice buyer specifies a GFSI-recognised scheme in their supplier requirements, and SALSA — however well you run it — does not satisfy that line in the contract.

That matters for how you approach the project. You are not fixing a broken system; you are raising the evidence standard of a system that already works, to a level a third party can verify without knowing you. If no customer is asking for BRCGS, be honest with yourself about whether the certificate earns its cost.

What SALSA already gives you

A site running SALSA properly is a long way further along than a site starting cold. You will typically already have:

• A HACCP study with hazards, controls and critical limits documented
• Prerequisite programmes — cleaning, pest control, maintenance, personal hygiene
• Traceability through goods-in, production and despatch
• Supplier approval and specifications
• Complaint handling and basic corrective action
• Staff training records and a documented induction

None of that gets thrown away. The work is deepening it, evidencing it over time, and adding the management-system layer that BRCGS expects to sit above it.

What BRCGS adds

The differences that consume the most time are rarely the ones people expect. It is not the document count. It is the parts of the standard that require a track record.

Senior management commitment, evidenced

BRCGS opens with a clause set on management commitment and continual improvement, and the auditor will test it against reality: objectives that are measurable, reviewed and acted on; management review with attendance, decisions and follow-through; resources actually released. A signed policy on the wall is not evidence.

Root cause, not just corrective action

SALSA wants problems fixed. BRCGS wants to know why they happened and what stops them recurring. Every non-conformity, complaint trend and internal audit finding needs a root cause and a check that the fix held. This is the single most common thing I have to rebuild.

Internal audit as a programme

A scheduled programme covering the whole system across the year, carried out by trained people who are independent of the area they audit, with findings that feed corrective action and management review. It has to have run — you cannot present a schedule.

Validation and verification of controls

Not "we cook to this temperature" but the evidence that the temperature and time achieve the reduction claimed, and the ongoing verification that it keeps doing so. Thermal processes, metal detection and other CCP challenge testing, calibration traceable to a standard.

Site standards, zoning and environmental monitoring

Expect closer attention to the fabric of the building, product flow and segregation, high- care or high-risk zoning where the product requires it, glass and hard plastic control, foreign body prevention, and — depending on your product and risk — an environmental monitoring programme with trend analysis rather than a set of pass results.

Food fraud and food defence

VACCP and TACCP assessments, kept current, with the mitigation actually in place. Horizon-scanning for your raw materials, not a template with your name in the header.

Labelling and product control

Label artwork approval and version control, on-line checks that the right label went on the right pack, allergen management with cleaning validation between products, and control of product change. Mislabelling is a fast route to a serious non-conformity and to a recall.

Unannounced audits

BRCGS offers an unannounced option and some customers require it. That changes the game: the system has to hold on an ordinary Tuesday, not on a prepared audit day.

How I would sequence it

• Gap analysis against the current issue of the standard, scored, with the items that need elapsed time flagged first.
• Start the time-dependent programmes immediately — internal audits, environmental monitoring, traceability challenges, calibration, objectives and management review. These are the clock.
• Fix structural and zoning items in parallel, because they need budget and downtime.
• Rebuild the management-system layer: root cause, complaint trending, document and record control, change control.
• Deepen HACCP with validation evidence for each critical control.
• Train the team on the parts they will be asked about, and make sure they can answer in their own words.
• Internal dry run of the audit, including a document trail traced end to end on one product.
• Book the audit only when the evidence trail exists — not to create a deadline.

Cost and time, realistically

Three to six months of preparation for a functioning SALSA site is a fair planning assumption, plus the certification body's own fees, which are separate from any consultancy cost. Sites that take longer usually do so for one of three reasons: structural work that needs capital, an environmental monitoring or validation programme starting from zero, or nobody on site with time to own the project.

That last one is the one I get called about most, and it is why interim technical cover exists — someone in the building carrying the project rather than a folder handed over at the end.

Two things worth deciding early

• Scope. Which products, processes and site areas the certificate covers. Getting this wrong is expensive to correct later.
• Announced or unannounced. If a customer will eventually require unannounced, build for it from the start rather than passing once and being caught the following year.