Smaller food business might have to deal with a lot of food safety audits, have a couple of people for several days with a particular customer. This added burden to small businesses. What documents do external auditors usually look at? Below are examples of some typical documents and records to be reviewed when external auditors auditing a food manufacturing plant.
Typical documents to be reviewed include but are not limited to:
- Organizational structure and job descriptions for selected positions
- HACCP plans including flow diagrams for product and processes
- Food safety and quality management system overview
- Supplier approval processes
- Specifications for raw materials (ingredients and packaging), work in progress (WIP) and finished products
- Product recall protocols
- Product recall data
- Food defense assessment (TACCP)
- Chemical identification, storage and handling procedure
- Preventive Maintenance programme
- Pest control programme
- Metal detector validation process (if metal detection is used)
- Glass and plastic management
- The preventive maintenance schedule, records of preventative and breakdown maintenance activities and maintenance handover and hygiene clearance
- Product labelling protocols
- Allergen management protocols
- Product authenticity (VACCP) risk assessment
- Product release protocols
- Calibration schedule
- Training plan(s)
Typical records to be reviewed include, but are not limited to:
- Supplier approval (generally required for the product selected for a vertical audit)
- Minutes of management review
- Evidence of HACCP verification activities
- Customer complaint data and investigations
- Internal management system audits and GMP/hygiene audits reports
- Test results for utilities including water, ice, steam, compressed air and gases
- Pest control treatments and/or visit records
- Glass and hard plastics register
- Glass breakage record
- Product results for microbiological, chemical and physical tests
- Calibration records
- Training records
- Validation records
- Stock rotation records
You can improve your food safety internal auditing and inspection skills by joining our Highfield level 3 auditing and inspection course. If you have concerns about the readiness of your customer audit but may not have time to attend the training, we provide a gap analysis service against the food safety standards you use. We can help you identify the areas for improvement of your food safety management system before your customer audit to help reduce the likelihood of non-conformance.
Please contact us to discuss your specific need and how we can help.
