A working group of the United Fresh Produce Association’s Food Safety & Technology Council has completed the development of the Audits Benchmarking Matrix; a tool which will enable side-by-side comparisons of the third-party audit organisations and standards most commonly used by the US produce industry.
“In 2009, United Fresh hosted the Global Conference on Produce Food Safety Standards – the first-ever opportunity for the produce industry to hear directly from 16 auditing organisations how they assure the quality of their audits and standards, as well as why their audits should be trusted,” explained Dr David Gombas, United Fresh’s senior vice-president of food safety and technology.
“The Audits Benchmarking Matrix is a direct output from that conference, enabling audit customers to compare the quality systems of these organisations and make informed choices of which audit programmes to accept.”
The Audits Benchmarking Matrix working group, led by Disney Consumer Products’ Gail Murray, invited all of the audit organisations involved in the Global Conference to provide written responses to specific questions designed to elicit information about their internal quality programmes.
Questions asked in the Audits Benchmarking Matrix range from which programme features most assure the reliability of the audits performed by the organisation, to listing their requirements for auditor experience in the food industry.
The Audits Benchmarking Matrix allows users to select and compare any of eight organisations that perform pre-farm gate – or GAP – audits, seven organisations that perform post-farm gate – or GMP – audits, and four organisations whose standards have been benchmarked by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
“Trust is the most important factor in deciding whether to use an audit organisation,” said Dr Gombas. “This means trust in both the audit process and in the auditor. The Audits Benchmarking Matrix allows interested parties to compare what these companies say about themselves from the convenience of a desktop.”
The Audits Benchmarking Matrix is freely accessible from the United Fresh website.
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