Accreditation

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Accreditation and Recognition

IFS Standards are subject to assessments by governments, governmental institutions and private organisations. These assessments help ensure that our standards meet national and international requirements. As an IFS-certified site, you benefit from our accreditation and recognition, as it

contributes to the global acceptance and trust of IFS Standards. Accordingly, you can enter new markets and win new customers with an IFS Certificate.

Accreditation

The IFS Standards being eligible for accreditation is a prerequisite for certification bodies to perform the IFS Audits. IFS cooperates with the national accreditation body, DAkkS in Germany and is a member of the European Accreditation (EA) and International Accreditation Forum (IAF). The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and IFS Management GmbH have signed a Scheme Endorsement Agreement to endorse the IFS Food scheme as a sub-scope of the IAF Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA).

DAkkS

The Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle (DAkkS) is the national accreditation body of Germany. Its shareholders are the federal government, the federal states and the German Industry, represented by the Federation of German Industries. DAkkS verifies the conformity of private standards such as IFS with accreditation rules.

The following IFS Standards are included in the DAkkS accreditation program and classified as eligible for accreditation: IFS Food, IFS Broker, IFS Logistics, IFS PACsecure, IFS HPC and IFS Wholesale Cash&Carry.

https://www.dakks.de/en/home-en.html

EA

IFS is a recognised stakeholder of the European cooperation for Accreditation (EA). It was formally appointed by the European Commission (EC) in Regulation No 765/2008 to develop and maintain a multilateral agreement of mutual recognition, the EA MLA, based on a harmonised accreditation infrastructure. The EA MLA exists to facilitate fair trade, ensure product and service quality and reduce technical trade barriers. EA currently has 49 Members. The EA Members are National Accreditation Bodies (NAB) that their national governments officially recognise.

https://european-accreditation.org

IAF

IFS is an association member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), a worldwide association of accreditation bodies and other bodies interested in conformity assessment in the fields of management systems, products, processes, services, personnel, validation and verification and other similar programs of conformity assessment. IAF recognition reduces the risk for businesses and their customers by assuring them that accredited certificates and validation and verification statements may be relied upon.

The IFS Food standard versions 7 and 8 are recognised under the IAF MLA.

https://iaf.nu/en/home/

National and International Recognition of IFS Standards

National Food Safety Authorities

Several European Food Safety Authorities recognise the IFS Food Standard. IFS Food-certified businesses benefit as these authorities consider IFS Food certification in their risk profiles and policies. It may reduce the frequency of official on-site visits for them. The agreement with these authorities contributes to better food safety practices and more efficiency in organising official on-site visits. IFS and the authorities have agreed to exchange information regularly and notify each other in case of incidents.

IFS cooperates with these authorities

The Dutch Authority NVWA
The French Authority DGAL
The Belgian Authority FAVV-AFSCA
The Romanian Authority ANSVSA
The Swedish Authority SLV

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)

GFSI is an initiative of the Consumer Goods Forum, a private organisation of food industry companies. The organisation has defined benchmarking requirements to promote mutual acceptance of GFSI-recognised certification programs. GFSI assesses if the standards and procedures of certification program owners such as IFS are according to their benchmarking requirements.

GFSI-recognised IFS Standards are IFS Food, IFS Broker, IFS Logistics and IFS PACsecure.

https://mygfsi.com/