British Retail Consortium (BRC)

The BRC standard was developed by the British Retail Consortium and aims at food suppliers of private label products for Super Markets mainly in England.

It was published for the first time in 1998 and since then many updated issues followed according to the development of requirements in the field of food safety. The latest issue and the one currently valid is Issue 9.

It concerns food production companies but doesn’t cover trade activity, imports, distribution and/or storage when occuring by third parties. BRC requires the compliance of companies with the laws concerning food products. The certified companies not only strengthen their credibility to customers but are also accepted by the British Retail Consortium (ticket to trade). Furthermore, the number of audits by their customers is reduced since the latter have access to all audit information by the Certification Body.