FSSC 22000 Accreditations

The adoption of a food safety management system (FSMS) is a strategic decision for an organization that can help to improve its overall performance in food safety. The potential benefits to an organization of implementing a FSMS based on this document are:

• the ability to consistently provide safe foods and products and services that meet customer and
  applicable statutory and regulatory requirements;
• addressing risks associated with its objectives;
• the ability to demonstrate conformity to specified FSMS requirements.

This document employs the process approach (see 0.3), which incorporates the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle (see 0.3.2) and risk-based thinking (see 0.3.3). This process approach enables an organization to plan its processes and their interactions. The PDCA cycle enables an organization to ensure that its processes are adequately resourced and managed, and that opportunities for improvement are determined and acted on.
Risk-based thinking enables an organization to determine the factors that could cause its processes and its FSMS to deviate from the planned results, and to put in place controls to prevent or minimize adverse effects.

In this document, the following verbal forms are used:

• “shall” indicates a requirement;
• “should” indicates a recommendation;
• “may” indicates a permission;
• “can” indicates a possibility or a capability.