Amid rising scrutiny on the safety and quality of packaging, Bureau Veritas is pressing packaging organisations to digest the new requirements in the recently published BRCGS Packaging Standard.
Published in August, issue six of the Global Standard marks the first major update to the BRC Global Standard for Packaging and Packaging Materials since 2015 and aims to improve product safety and quality practices when it comes to the manufacture and printing of packaging materials. The revised standard, due to come into force in February 2020, includes several new clauses requiring organisations to take tangible steps to improve the culture of safety and quality at their sites.
These include changes to the Hazard and Risk Analysis, a new environmental monitoring clause as well as the introduction of the Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA), not to mention scrapping the previous two-tier hygiene system in favour of a simpler risk-based approach.
Joy Franks, food market director at Bureau Veritas, said: “The manufacture of packaging for the food industry often involves potential harmful materials and processes - whether it’s inks, or coatings that have the potential to migrate into food through to physical/foreign body risks. Therefore, issue six is a welcome step forward in the evolution of safety, quality and operational criteria throughout the packaging production chain."