Safety Quality Food (SQF)

The Safety Quality Food Program (SQF) offers two different standards, or 'codes':

• SQF 1000 for primary producers (fans), and
• SQF 2000 for manufacturers (processing plants)

The codes recognize that risk management can be applied to all products, but not all processes lend themselves to a complete HACCP system. Therefore, SQF 1000 is based on the principles of HACCP whereas the SQF 2000 Code is a complete HACCP system.

Within each code there are three levels

• Fundamental food safety,
• HACCP-based food safety plans, and
• Comprehensive food safety and quality management systems.
  

This allows every supplier, from the smallest farmer to the largest manufacturer, to be eligible for SQF certification.

The ten basic steps for implementing the SQF Program are (excerpt from the SQF manual):

1. The Buyer requests the desired level of certification to be achieved by the supplier.  
2. The Supplier designates a staff member as its SQF Practitioner to lead development of its SQF System, or hires an external SQF Consultant licensed by The SQF Institute.
3. The SQF Practitioner is trained at a licensed SQF Training Center.
4. The SQF Practitioner conducts a gap analysis of the supplier’s current system.  
5. The Supplier selects an SQF licensed Certification Body to perform a certification audit.
6. A Certification Audit is conducted consisting of a document review and on-site audit.
7. An Auditor recommends certification if no critical or major non-conformities are found and the audit result indicates an acceptable rating.
8. The Certification Body Review Council makes the final decision and the SQF Certificate and audit report are issued. The SQF Certificate is valid for 12 months.
9. If critical or major non-conformities are found, the supplier takes corrective action, which is verified before certification is granted.
10. Re-certification audits are conducted annually and within 30 days of the scheduled audit date. Audit frequency can be either annual, semi annual or more frequent depending on the type of certificate issued and the risk level.  

For suppliers who already have adequate food safety procedures and systems in place, the move to SQF certification will be relatively simple. If a supplier’s food safety and quality management systems are not well-documented or developed, system upgrades will be necessary to meet the SQF requirements. The SQF Program provides a variety of resources to help suppliers obtain expertise to develop their own SQF system.