BRCGS Packaging Certification Cost: What Drives Budget and Timeline

What makes up the budget of a BRCGS Packaging project?

Five invoiced items and one hidden one: your teams’ time. The Standard costs nothing: according to the BRCGS Guide to Certification, it can be accessed free of charge from the BRCGS online store. Everything else depends on your site.

Two rules affect the testing line. Migration tests are among the critical-use parameters to agree with the customer where relevant (clause 5.1.1). And any test critical to safety or legality must be carried out by a laboratory that is accredited or operates to the principles of ISO/IEC 17025 (5.6.6): the cheapest laboratory is not always acceptable.

Which factors make cost and timeline vary?

Scope and the intended use of the products weigh more than headcount. The table shows the factors we cost during a gap analysis.

A maker of printed films in direct contact with biscuits has to deal with migration, ink set-off, validated cleaning and a statement of compliance for each reference. A carton maker supplying transport cases to citrus packhouses concentrates on foreign bodies, pallets and pests. With the same starting gap, the second project is usually shorter. Hygiene controls by material are detailed in our packaging hygiene and contamination control checklist.

How long does it take, and what stretches the timeline?

BRCGS sets no period before the audit. But the audit assesses actual implementation, through observation of practices, document review and staff interviews: a system written the month before will not pass. Several requirements assume a track record.

• Internal audits follow a programme spread over the year, with every activity audited at least once a year (3.5.1).
• The traceability test is run at least once a year across product groups, within 4 hours (3.10.4).
• The recall procedure is tested at least once a year, with timings of key activities (3.14.5).
• Flow diagrams are verified on site at least once a year (2.4.2).
• Management review is held at least once a year (1.2.1).

What most often stretches the timeline on our assignments: ink or polymer suppliers slow to send their declarations, works started too late, a project lead with no protected time, and a HARA redone after the mock audit because it did not describe the real lines.

The only deadlines set by BRCGS come after the audit.

How do the audit programme and the grade affect the budget?

The audit duration is calculated by the certification body with the BRCGS calculator for the Standard concerned, and it is the same for an unannounced audit as for an announced one (BRCGS079). You do not negotiate it; you bring it down by limiting the scope to what your customers need and by preparing documents so that they are found quickly.

The budget mostly slips for organisational reasons:

• an unannounced audit that cannot go ahead because there is no production for its planned duration must be rescheduled, and the BRCGS079 protocol leaves the charging of the auditor’s time to the contract with the certification body;
• a contract signed too late, after the four-month window has opened, moves the audit due date, may let the certificate expire and leads to a major non-conformity;
• a refusal of access to the auditor suspends the certificate until a new unannounced audit, with a major non-conformity;
• an audit that does not lead to certification means a new full audit, and therefore a second audit invoice.

The grade matters too: the BRCGS protocols provide for the next audit at 12 or 6 months depending on the grade, which can double the number of audits per year; the grading scale and the grades concerned are set in the Issue 7 audit protocol. That is the strongest economic argument for a serious mock audit. Preparing the audit itself is covered in our guide to BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7.

What can be funded, and how do you present the budget to management?

Training, in part; the rest, no. Special training contracts (contrats spéciaux de formation, CSF) are run by OFPPT, the Office de la formation professionnelle et de la promotion du travail, Morocco’s vocational training office. They cover training activities: training the HARA team, internal auditors, and operators in hygiene and process control. The certification audit and the site works are not covered, and consultancy is not covered as such. The rates and ceilings in force, the procedure and the simulation are on our CSF / OFPPT funding page: they are rules, not guaranteed amounts, and only OFPPT decides the reimbursement. These rules come from the CSF procedures manual of May 2006 and its Amendment No. 2 of 2 June 2014. Upstream, a training needs analysis linked to a certification project is eligible for support from your sector GIAC (the interprofessional groups that fund training engineering), under the GIAC procedures manual and its Amendment No. 1 of 2 June 2014.

Before you present the project to your management committee, gather these items:

• Each customer’s written request: standard, issue, modules, deadline, and whether GFSI recognition is required.
  
• The list of references supplied, with their material, intended use and whether they are in direct contact with food.
  
• The intended scope: products, processes, traded products, outsourced steps, sites.
  
• The result of the gap analysis on the Issue 7 self-assessment checklist.
  
• The list of works the HARA makes necessary, with their lead times.
  
• The name of the project lead and their deputy, and the time set aside each week.
  
• The training plan, and the CSF file prepared before training starts.
  
• Quotes from at least two certification bodies, on the same written scope.
  

The cost of a BRCGS consultant, item by item, is covered in our article on BRCGS consultancy cost in Morocco, and our case study of a flexible packaging printer shows how one project absorbs a European customer’s PPWR requests.