Key takeaways
  • FSSC 22000 is ISO 22000 plus an ISO/TS 22002 sector prerequisite specification plus scheme-specific additional requirements.
  • It is GFSI-recognised, which is why retailers and large manufacturers ask for it rather than ISO 22000 alone.
  • Food fraud and food defence assessments are additional requirements that many sites underestimate.
What the extra letters buy you
GFSI recognition

The practical reason organisations choose FSSC over ISO 22000 alone is customer acceptance. The scheme adds the sector prerequisites and additional requirements that GFSI benchmarking demands.

The three components

  • ISO 22000. The management system and HACCP-based hazard control.
  • ISO/TS 22002-x. Detailed prerequisite programme requirements for your sector: food manufacturing, catering, packaging, animal feed, transport and storage, and others.
  • Additional FSSC requirements. Scheme-specific items layered on top.

The additional requirements that catch sites out

  • Food fraud. A vulnerability assessment across raw materials and supply chain, plus a mitigation plan. Not the same as food defence.
  • Food defence. A threat assessment covering intentional adulteration, with mitigation and site security.
  • Allergen management. A documented plan covering segregation, cleaning validation, labelling and verification.
  • Environmental monitoring. A risk-based programme with defined sampling, trending, and action on positive results.
  • Product design and development. Ensuring safety is designed in, including shelf life validation.
  • Management of services and purchased materials.
  • Quality culture. Defined objectives, communicated, with performance measured over time.

Fraud versus defence

Food fraud is economically motivated adulteration: someone substituting or diluting for profit. Food defence is intentional harm. They require different assessments and different mitigations, and combining them into one document is a routine finding.

Environmental monitoring

The programme needs a rationale for where and how often you sample, trending of results over time, and defined escalation when a positive occurs, including investigation and intensified sampling. A programme that records results without trending them, or without a written response to a positive, will be challenged.

Preparing for the unannounced audit

The scheme requires an unannounced audit within the certification cycle, so readiness cannot be a week of preparation. The practical implication is that routine records, hygiene checks, verification activities and corrective actions must be current on any given day, which favours systems where checks are completed as they happen rather than reconstructed.