The purpose of IFS Food Certification is to assess whether a manufacturer's processing activities are capable of producing products that are safe, legal and meet customer specifications.
That is why both safety and product quality are essential components of all IFS Standards. The IFS Assessment focuses on product and process and ensures that high-quality product development is ensured through appropriate operational processes.
IFS Standards are uniform global safety and quality standards that provide transparency and comparability throughout the supply chain beyond primary production. In this way, IFS strives to meet all the challenges of globalization, in addition to the increasing importance of private labels for which distributors are responsible. An IFS certification makes it easy to reduce costs for repetitive audits and further supports company management through consistent reporting and a modern, easy-to-use database.
Standard Scope
The IFS Food Standard is applicable to manufacturers of food products and can only be used for companies that process food and/or companies that pack food products.
The IFS Food Standard is complemented by another normative document, the IFS Food Doctrine. The IFS Food Doctrine provides additional rules and clarifications on the interpretation of some IFS Food requirements.
Certification Process
Companies need to prepare well in advance for an IFS Food Certification, which comprises the different steps shown in ANNEX 2 of the Certification Protocol.
The IFS Assessment is a crucial part of the certification process, as the company and its production processes will be compared against all the specified requirements set out in Part 2, in order to assess the compliance of the products and production processes. .
