Which Food Safety Certification to Export? Choosing a GFSI Standard

Where do you start when a buyer asks for “a certification”?

With an inventory of your customers and prospects, market by market and product by product, with the exact wording of their requirement. The question “which food safety certification do I need to export?” has no answer per country: it has an answer per buyer.

GFSI recognises programmes so that one certificate avoids duplicate audits, but it does not oblige any buyer to accept any certificate. A retailer may name a standard, a version, a grade or an audit programme. Another retailer in the same country may be satisfied with “a GFSI-recognised certificate”. Basing your choice on a market’s reputation means risking a certificate your customer refuses.

Start with a simple table, kept by the sales director and the quality manager. The rows below show the structure, not real requirements.

The last column is not a detail. When two requirements conflict, it is often the one that decides.

Which questions should you put in writing to each buyer?

Ten questions are enough to turn a vague request into a usable requirement. Send them by email and keep the answers: they will also serve during the audit, where compliance with customer agreements is checked (IFS Food even makes it a KO requirement, 4.1.3).

1. Which standard do you accept, and in which version (for example FSSC 22000 v6 or v7, SQF Edition 9 or 10)?
2. Do you accept any programme recognised by GFSI for our scope, or only some of them?
3. Do you require a minimum result: a BRCGS grade, IFS Higher level?
4. Do you require a specific audit programme: unannounced, IFS Star status?
5. What is your deadline, and do you accept an intermediate step in the meantime?
6. Must the certificate cover every product we supply to you, including those made by a subcontractor?
7. Do you expect an additional module or a requirement specific to your banner?
8. Will you accept a new version of a standard before its GFSI recognition?
9. Do you require other evidence as well: halal certification, a testing plan, a second-party audit?
10. In what form is your agreement valid: signed supplier requirements, an email from your quality department?

How to read the answers

How do you map your site to the right GFSI scope?

By describing what the site physically does to the product. GFSI recognises each programme for specific scopes, coded from AI to K; a programme that does not cover your scope is of no use to you, even if the buyer accepts it.

Ask four questions, in this order:

• Do you process the product? Canning, freezing, cutting, cooking: you fall under scopes C (C0 to CIV), or K for ingredients. Sorting, washing and packing whole produce falls under BIII.
• Do you make packaging for third parties? That is scope I, with BRCGS Packaging Materials, IFS PACsecure or FSSC 22000.
• Do you store or transport other companies’ products? That is scope G.
• Do you buy and resell without handling the product? That is scope FII, with BRCGS Agents & Brokers or IFS Broker.

A cannery that also makes cans sold to others falls under two scopes, and therefore sometimes under two standards. The full table of activities, scopes and programmes listed by GFSI is on our page GFSI standards compared. The scope is then confirmed with the certification body, before the quote.

How do you check that the intended standard is actually recognised?

On GFSI’s official page, by checking three things: the standard, its version and your scope. For BRCGS, the page also states which audit programmes are covered.

Four gaps are common in late 2026:

• BRCGS Packaging Materials has been audited against Issue 7 since April 2025, but GFSI still lists Issue 6;
• FSSC 22000 is listed in version 6, while Version 7, published in May 2026, is undergoing benchmarking;
• GLOBALG.A.P. IFA v6 is designed for GFSI recognition only in its GFS edition, according to GLOBALG.A.P.;
• BRCGS START! and IFS Progress are entry-level programmes absent from the list; IFS Progress is an assessment, not a certificate.

When the version audited is not yet the one GFSI lists, question 8 to the buyer becomes decisive. The full recognition status is kept up to date in our article on GFSI recognised standards in 2026.

How do you cross-check the answers of several buyers?

In a matrix: one row per buyer, one column per standard, and in each cell “required”, “accepted” or “refused”. Look first for a column with no “refused”; if there is none, keep the smallest combination that covers every customer.

In this example, no single column is enough: you need BRCGS and IFS Food. Had customer B accepted BRCGS, one certificate would have covered all three.

When several solutions remain, break the tie with these criteria:

• your prospects three years out, not only your current customers;
• your organisation: a site that also targets ISO 9001:2026 reuses the ISO structure of FSSC 22000;
• your ability to receive unannounced audits, which each standard organises differently;
• the audit language: IFS requires the audit to be held in the site’s working language, with an interpreter if needed; at FSSC 22000, an interpreter adds at least 20% to the duration;
• the cost over the cycle, compared in our article on BRCGS, IFS and FSSC 22000 certification cost.

The scoring and audit logic of each standard is detailed in our BRCGS vs IFS vs FSSC 22000 comparison.

Which mistakes should you avoid before signing with a certification body?

Six mistakes recur in the projects we take over midway:

1. Choosing by country rather than by buyer.
2. Choosing the best-known standard without checking that it covers your scope.
3. Settling for “a GFSI certificate” without having the version specified.
4. Ignoring transitions: FSSC 22000 v6 to v7, SQF Edition 9 to 10, BRCGS Issue 10 in preparation with no date.
5. Certifying only part of the products and delivering the rest to the same customer.
6. Forgetting the regulatory prerequisite: the sanitary authorisation or approval of ONSSA (Office National de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits Alimentaires), Morocco’s national food safety authority, must cover the whole intended scope.

Before signing, go through this checklist with your management committee:

• Every significant customer and prospect is in the inventory, with its written requirement.
  
• The ten questions have received a written answer, or a follow-up is scheduled.
  
• The site’s activities are mapped to one or more GFSI scopes.
  
• The chosen standard is listed by GFSI for that scope, or the buyer has accepted the audited version in writing.
  
• The buyers × standards matrix is signed off by the managing director.
  
• Additional evidence (halal, testing) is identified.
  
• ONSSA authorisation or approval covers the whole scope.
  
• An authorised certification body has confirmed the scope and the audit duration.
  

Our case study of a Moroccan exporter facing three buyers applies this method from start to finish. For halal requirements, see our page Halal and Kosher.