Food safety certifications: FSSC 22000, IFS and BRCGS compared

The food safety in the European Union constitutes a prerequisite for the operation of all operators participating in the supply chain, ‘from farm to fork’. Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 requires every food business operator — at all stages subsequent to primary production — to establish, implement and maintain one or more permanent procedures based on the HACCP principles (Article 5).

The certification schemes of food safety involve the voluntary adoption by operators of specific protocols aimed at ensuring continuous compliance with high standards of safety and quality, with additional requirements developed following consultations among top experts in the involved fields and their shared acceptance by the representatives of the sectors involved, globally.

Regulation (EU) 2017/625 on official public controls in the agri-food chain considers these aspects where it provides that the competent authorities, when planning official controls based on risk, take into account the reliability and results of controls carried out by the operators themselves, or by third parties at their request, including, where applicable, private quality certification schemes (Article 9, paragraph 1, point ‘d’).

Certification, in other words, does not exempt from any obligation or control. However, it may affect the frequency of official controls, with a view to their optimization. In any case, it constitutes the requirement for access to the lists of branded product suppliers of the large organized retail (GDO), as well as being appreciated by buyer international.

GFSI, the benchmark and the real state of recognitions

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), coalition of Consumer Goods Forum, is an organization shared by the representatives of the interested sectors, in agri-food production and distribution, established in 2000 on the initiative of the main operators in the sector, with the purpose of reducing risks to food safety, audit duplications, and their related costs along global supply chains. The GFSI does not certify, accredit, or develop standards: its requirements are addressed to scheme owners and companies cannot be subjected to audits against them. Its role istherefore it expresses itself in the dual task of:

• define and update the Benchmarking Requirements (BMR) to which private voluntary certification schemes of food safety management systems must comply, in order to ensure compliance with a high standard shared globally;
• evaluate the compliance of the various schemes prepared by Certification Programme Owners (CPO, e.g. FSSC 22000, IFS, BRCGS) against their own Benchmark, so that they can be recognized by the represented categories, according to the principle ‘once certified, accepted everywhere’.

I BMR version 2024, published on December 20, 2024 following a public consultation that between July and September 2024 collected over 2,500 comments, are declared to be aligned with the Codex Alimentarius (General Principles of Food Hygiene) and to the standard ISO 22003 on the requirements for bodies certifying food safety management systems. The Benchmark private therefore anchors itself, in turn, to the Codex-ISO system. The requirements have been updated in line with the evolution of regulations and shared needs, with particular regard to:

• food safety culture, introduced by regulation (EU) 2021/382 (Dongo, 2021) and elaborated in a specific position paper by GFSI, which reached its second edition in March 2026 — after the 2018 one — presented at the GFSI Conference in Vancouver and based on over 180 academic and industry sources, with a two-level model between organizational foundations and manifest practices (GFSI, 2026);
• food defense, and management of the risks of tampering, already subject to specific FSSC 22000 guidelines (2018);
• vulnerability assessment to food fraud, themselves already considered in the aforementioned FSSC 22000 guidelines (2018) as well as subject of a specific ISO 22380:2018 standard;
• management of prerequisite programs (PRPs), which have also been considered among other things in the most recent European Commission guidelines (Dongo, 2022);
• rules for multisite certifications, with clearer criteria for the definition and audit of the central function;
• streamlining of the process of benchmarking regarding eligibility criteria, timing, and procedures of escalation.

Recognition applications with respect to the new requirements have been open since January 6, 2025. Schemes already recognized under version 2020.1 had a nine-month window, until September 5, 2025, to submit applications; pending the evaluations, existing recognitions remain valid.

To date, the only private certification schemes for food safety management systems recognized with respect to the 2024 version of GFSI BMR are CanadaGAP and JFSM (Japan). FSSC 22000 (version 6, recognized August 29, 2024), IFS Food v8 (September 16, 2024), and BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 9 (August 28, 2024) remain recognized with respect to the 2020 version of BMR.

Recognition, it should be noted, is not retroactive. In the case of BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9, for example, certificates issued before the resolution of Steering Committee (August 23, 2024) are not considered recognized by GFSI.

All applications of benchmarking with respect to the 2024 version are under evaluation. Among others, FSSC 22000 version 7, the four BRCGS schemes (Food Safety Issue 9, Packaging Materials Issue 7, Storage & Distribution Issue 4, Agents & Brokers Issue 3), IFS Food version 8 with Doctrine version 5, and SQF Food Safety Certification Edition 10 are under review. Existing certificates remain valid and recognized meanwhile.

FSSC 22000, the scheme built on ISO standards

The architecture of the certification scheme developed by the Foundation FSSC 22000 (Food Safety System Certification) is entirely based on ISO standards: the ISO 22000 standard for the management system, the prerequisite programs (PRPs) of the ISO 22002-x series, and the additional requirements of the scheme. The author once had the opportunity to promote its recognition by GFSI, representing the European agri-food industry, as then president of the Working Group ‘Food Hygiene’ of CIAA (today FoodDrinkEurope) and its representative in ISO (ISO/TC 34/SC 17 – Management systems for food safety).

The ISO standards differ from private schemes created by large retail representatives (e.g. IFS, BRC), although then developed by autonomous bodies, under two main and valid aspects:

• The governance of the system of development and approval, to which national standardization bodies that make up ISO contribute (e.g. UNI in Italy, British Standards Institution in the United Kingdom, DIN in Germany, AFNOR in France), the representations of the sectors involved as well as, at the European level, CEN, which cooperates with ISO by virtue of the 1991 Vienna Agreement, revised in 2001, which provides for joint planning of projects and parallel approval of standards at the international and European levels. The same Benchmarking Requirements of GFSI, moreover, explicitly align with the Codex Alimentarius and ISO 22003 standard;
• The stability of standards over the years, since their revision is promoted and carried out only upon the occurrence of objective and shared needs, to achieve the relevant objectives of each standard. For example, ISO 22000:2005 underwent a first revision after thirteen years (ISO 22000:2018). The next update is now underway, following the approval of the new project on January 9, 2024: the committee draft was approved for registration as DIS on March 5, 2026 and the vote on the ISO/DIS 22000 project, lasting twelve weeks, was started on May 6, 2026 (ISO, 2026).

The Version 7 of FSSC 22000 was published at the beginning of May 2026. The reasons for the revision are stated by the Foundation:

• to incorporate the new ISO 22002-x:2025 series on prerequisite programs (PRPs), instead of the previous base constituted by ISO/TS 22002-x technical specifications and the Publicly Available Specifications of BSI;
• to align the scheme with the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements v2024;
• strengthen the requirements to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in UN Agenda 2030;
• redefine the structure of the food supply chain categories, updating auditor qualification requirements.

FSSC 22000 V7 also:

• introduces a new requirement on product design and development related to sustainability of packaging (Part 2, requirement 2.5.13. In line with the PPWR. Dongo et al., 2026);
• incorporates some principles of Save Food Packaging, developed by theAustralasian Institute of Packaging and adapted globally by the World Packaging Organization, supporting the reduction of food loss and waste;
• removes from the scheme's additional requirements (Part 2, section 2.5) those whose content is now absorbed by the new ISO 22002-x:2025 series, thus avoiding duplication between ISO standards and FSSC proprietary requirements.

The change in the PRP series alters the framework, not just the references. The previous ISO/TS 22002-x repeated common requirements in each sectoral part, with inevitable misalignments. The new series, published in July 2025, brings them together in a single base: the ISO 22002-100:2025 consolidates prerequisite programs (PRPs) for the entire food, feed, and packaging supply chain, while the sectoral parts — starting with ISO 22002-1:2025 for food manufacturing — apply in addition to it.

The transition timeline is tight, as audits on Version 6 are allowed until April 30, 2027, and upgrade audits to upgrade Version 7 must be conducted between May 1, 2027, and April 30, 2028.

On the dissemination front, the real-time counter on the FSSC site records 42,650 certified organizations as of September 1, 2026, in over 150 countries, with 115 license partners and 46 accreditation bodies. The progression is clear: over 37,000 in the 2024 report, over 40,000 in the 2025 report, nearly 43,000 today. A growth in the order of8% per year.

IFS and BRCGS, the distribution schemes

Within the scope of European large-scale retail trade, IFS Food (International Featured Standards, of Franco-German origin) and BRCGS (Brand Reputation Compliance Global Standards, of British origin) maintain a dominant position in supplier qualification, especially for private label productions.

IFS

IFS stated over 20,000 IFS Food certificates in April 2023, on the occasion of the publication of version 8, in addition to market leadership in Europe. In 2025, the network included 1,450 auditors and 83 certification bodies, with a 5.7% growth in audits between January and September 2025 (IFS Food +5.6%, IFS Broker +9.9%, IFS HPC +9.7%, IFS Logistics +7.0%). The version 8 of the standard was published on April 18, 2023 and is mandatory for audits from January 1, 2024.

On April 23, 2026 IFS published the Doctrine updated for IFS Food 8, Logistics 3, Broker 3.2 and PACsecure 3, expressly stating that the updates were necessary to comply with the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements 2024 and prepare the recognition application; among the changes, the definition of product and food safety culture has been clarified and integrated. The Doctrine, note well, are regulatory documents that integrate the standard.

I adjustment terms derive from the general rule stated in the document's preface: the new rules or adapted apply two months after the publication of the relevant version, unless otherwise indicated. The Doctrine v5, published on April 23, 2026, is therefore applicable from June 23, 2026. Certification bodies must therefore promptly provide internal training for the staff involved before the new rules come into force.

BRCGS

BRCGS shows slightly higher numbers on the individual food standard. The Issue 9, launched in August 2022, counts over 24,500 certified sites in 137 countries. The standard is already under revision: the public consultation for Issue 10 was opened on January 9, 2026 and closed on the following February 15. Meanwhile, alignment with the new GFSI requirements has been managed with the scheme's typical tool, the position statements.

On May 26, 2026, BRCGS confirmed that it had submitted an application for benchmarking against the BMR 2024 for four certification schemes and has updated the related position statements (F926 for Food Safety, P708 for Packaging Materials, SD404 for Storage & Distribution, AB310 for Agents & Brokers), which in turn integrate the standard and are effective for all audits conducted by August 10, 2026, with eleven weeks of transition. The new provisions concern, among other things, roles and responsibilities of personnel, management and documented verification of prerequisite programs, food defence and threat assessment, vulnerability assessment to fraud, and for the food standard only, the requirements on protective clothing.

IFS and BRC, pros and cons

These schemes present symmetrical advantages and additional burdens, compared to FSSC 22000, which deserve careful consideration before choosing:

• commercial recognizability immediate among the buyer of the European and British large-scale retail trade, with detailed audit protocols on hygiene process controls;
• scope of application which exceeds food safety, to embrace commercial quality, authenticity and legality of the product, with the consequent documentation load;
• annual certification cycle, against the three-year cycle of FSSC 22000, which entails recurring organizational commitment;
• high frequency of updates regulatory with very short adjustment terms, as seen: two months for the Doctrine IFS, eleven weeks for the position statements BRCGS. This results in unpredictable commitments and costs for certified companies, in human resources and beyond.

Updated comparative table

Comparison of the three schemes, as of the publication date:

Feature	FSSC 22000	IFS Food	BRCGS Food Safety
Regulatory basis	ISO 22000 + ISO 22002-x series:2025 (PRP) + additional FSSC requirements	proprietary standard IFS + Doctrine	proprietary standard BRCGS + position statements
Current version	Version 7 (May 2026)	Version 8 (April 2023), Doctrine v5 (23 April 2026)	Issue 9 (August 2022), position statements v4 (27 April 2026)
Application	V6 audits allowed until 30.4.2027, upgrade V7 from 1.5.2027 to 30.4.2028	New or adapted rules of the Doctrine v5 applicable from 23.6.2026 (two months after publication)	position statements updated, effective for audits from 10.8.2026 (12 weeks after publication). Issue 10 in preparation
GFSI recognition	BMR v2020 (version 6, 29.8.2024); V7 in benchmarking against BMR v2024	BMR v2020 (16.9.2024); in benchmarking against BMR v2024, with Doctrine v5	BMR v2020 (28.8.2024, resolution of 23.8.2024); in benchmarking against BMR v2024
Certification cycle	three-year, with annual surveillance audits and at least one unannounced audit per cycle	annual validity certificate, with at least one out of three audits unannounced	annual validity certificate; announced audit programs, blended announced, voluntary unannounced or mandatory unannounced once every three years
Declared spread	over 40,000 organizations, over 150 countries	over 20,000 IFS Food certificates (data declared in April 2023)	over 24,500 sites, 137 countries
Operational focus	food safety and management system integrity	safety, quality, legal compliance and process specifications	safety, legality, authenticity and product quality
Geographical rooting	global and multisectoral	Continental Europe, with strong presence in Germany, France, and Italy	United Kingdom, Europe and North America

How many certificates are in the European Union

Neither GFSI nor scheme owners publish disaggregated data for the European Union or individual Member States. The verifiable numbers are those global ones reported in the previous paragraphs, supplemented by three public domain registers consultable on a case-by-case basis: the Public Register of the FSSC Foundation, the Database IFS and the Directory BRCGS. The buyer can (and should) verify the validity of certificates on these registers.

On the side ISO, the country data of the ISO Survey — which also covers ISO 22000 — from 2025 are compiled directly by the database IAF CertSearch and made accessible subject to registration on that platform, a circumstance that limits immediate citation but not consultation by operators.

Strategic considerations for the Italian food industry

For Italian food industries, often oriented towards a mix of export, private label production, and local markets, the strategic choice of the scheme to adopt should be approached with materiality criteria:

• integration of management systems (FSSC 22000), a preferred solution for those who export or aspire to export outside the European Union or supply raw materials and semi-finished products to global industrial groups, since the ISO derivation allows easy integration of food safety with quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001), and occupational health and safety (ISO 45001), reducing document duplication and audit costs;
• predictability of investment (FSSC 22000), which derives from the stability of the ISO standards on which the scheme is based and the scheduled revision cycles, without new requirements to implement in a few weeks. The three-year certification cycle allows multi-year planning of dedicated resource costs, training plans, and audits, with known adjustment burdens in advance;
• commercial responsiveness (IFS, BRCGS), a favored choice for those working in intensive subcontracting for European and British chains, with the caveat that the annual renewal and frequent scheme updates must be budgeted in man-days, as well as audit fees;
• dual certification, an option to consider when markets target are heterogeneous, also taking into account the possibility of joint audits between the two distribution schemes.

The years 2026-2027 are in any case a transition period for all three schemes, each engaged in obtaining compliance recognition with the new GFSI requirements of benchmarking. Certified companies should now plan resources for updating, verifying with their certification body the effective dates of application of the new requirements and the options for transitioning from IFS and BRCGS to FSSC 22000.

The final decision must therefore come from a matrix that weighs markets target, type of supply chain, management systems already in place and internal tolerance to maintenance costs. Without forgetting the starting point: no private scheme can replace compliance with mandatory regulations, nor the self-control obligations incumbent on each operator (Dongo et al., 2018).

Dario Dongo

Credit cover Crich

References

Normative sources of the European Union

Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs. Consolidated text: 24/03/2021. http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2004/852/2021-03-24

Regulation (EU) 2017/625 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2017 on official controls and other official activities performed to ensure the application of food and feed law (Official Controls Regulation). Consolidated text: 05/01/2025. http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2017/625/2025-01-05

Documents of certification schemes and standardization bodies

BRCGS. (2026, 9 January). Public consultation – Global Standard Food Safety, Issue 9. https://www.brcgs.com/about-brcgs/news/2026/public-consultation-food-safety-issue-9/

BRCGS. (2026, 26 May). Important update – BRCGS alignment with GFSI Benchmarking Requirements 2024. https://www.brcgs.com/about-brcgs/news/2026/important-update-brcgs-alignment-with-gfsi-benchmarking-requirements-2024/

CEN-CENELEC. CEN and ISO Cooperation. https://www.cencenelec.eu/about-cen/cen-and-iso-cooperation/

Foundation FSSC. (2026). FSSC 22000 Provides Trust and Impact for Global Food Safety. Consulted on 1 September 2026. https://www.fssc.com/fssc-22000/

Foundation FSSC. (2026, 9 April). Foundation FSSC Annual Report 2025: Demonstrating the Power of Management Systems. https://www.fssc.com/insights/fssc-annual-report-2025/

Foundation FSSC. (2026, May). Version 7 is Official! https://www.fssc.com/insights/version-7-is-official/

Foundation FSSC. (2026). FSSC 22000 Version 7: Key Changes Explained. https://www.fssc.com/insights/fssc-22000-version-7-key-changes/

Foundation FSSC. (2026). FSSC 22000 Version 7 – Additional Requirements. https://www.fssc.com/fssc-22000/fssc-22000-v7-additional-requirements/

Foundation FSSC. (2026). How to become FSSC 22000 certified. https://www.fssc.com/fssc-22000/become-fssc-22000-certified/

Global Food Safety Initiative. (2026). GFSI-Recognised Certification Programme Owners. https://mygfsi.com/how-to-implement/recognition/certification-programme-owners/

Global Food Safety Initiative. (2026, 26 March). A Culture of Food Safety – Version 2.0. https://mygfsi.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/GFSI-Food-Safety-Culture-Position-Paper-March-2026.pdf

Global Food Safety Initiative. (2026). Programmes undergoing benchmarking against V2024. https://mygfsi.com/how-to-implement/recognition/certification-programme-owners/cpos-undergoing-benchmarking

Global Food Safety Initiative. (2024, 20 December). Global Collaboration, Enhanced Food Safety: The Benchmarking Requirements 2024 Unveiled. https://mygfsi.com/news_updates/global-collaboration-enhanced-food-safety-the-benchmarking-requirements-2024-unveiled/

Global Food Safety Initiative. (2024, 28 August). GFSI announces its recognition of BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9. https://mygfsi.com/press_releases/gfsi-announces-its-recognition-of-brcgs-food-safety-issue-9/

Global Food Safety Initiative. (2024, 16 September). IFS Food Standard v8 achieves GFSI recognition. https://mygfsi.com/press_releases/ifs-food-standard-v8-achieves-gfsi-recognition/

IFS. (2026, 23 April). New doctrines for IFS Food, Broker, Logistics and PACsecure. https://www.ifs-certification.com/en/news/new-doctrines-for-ifs-food-broker-logistics-and-pacsecure

IFS. (2026, April). IFS Food version 8 Doctrine, version 5. https://www.ifs-certification.com/images/ifs_documents/IFS_Food_v8_doctrine_v5_EN.pdf

ISO. (2025). ISO 22002-1:2025. Prerequisite programmes on food safety — Part 1: Food manufacturing. https://www.iso.org/standard/22002-1

ISO. (2025). ISO 22002-100:2025. Prerequisite programmes on food safety — Part 100: Requirements for the food, feed and packaging supply chain. https://www.iso.org/standard/22002-100

ISO. (2026). ISO/DIS 22000. Food safety management systems — Requirements for any organization in the food chain (project under development, stage 40.20). https://www.iso.org/standard/88794.html

ISO. (2026). The ISO Survey. https://www.iso.org/the-iso-survey.html

Legal insights

Dongo, D. (2021, 9 March). EU Reg. 2021/382. Allergen management, safety culture, food redistribution. FT (Food Times). https://www.foodtimes.eu/it/sistemi-alimentari/reg-ue-2081-382-cultura-della-sicurezza-redistribuzione-alimenti-gestione-allergeni/

Dongo, D. (2022, 23 December). Food safety management systems, EU guidelines 2022. FT (Food Times). https://www.foodtimes.eu/it/sistemi-alimentari/sistemi-di-gestione-della-sicurezza-alimentare-linee-guida-ce-2022/

Dongo, D., Della Penna A.A. (2026, 3 July). PPWR: the responsibility of the brand owner. FT (Food Times). https://www.foodtimes.eu/it/sistemi-alimentari/ppwr-imballaggi-alimentari-responsabilita/

Dongo, D., Torre G. (2018, 6 April). Food safety, ABC operator responsibilities. FT (Food Times). https://www.foodtimes.eu/it/consumatori-e-salute/sicurezza-alimentare-abc-responsabilita-operatori/