GFSI Certification: What It Is and How HACCP Builder Helps

Many food processors already run a solid HACCP program – but an increasing number of buyers, retailers, and co-manufacturing partners now require a GFSI-recognized certification on top of it. If you sell to multiple customers, you may even be asked for different schemes by different buyers – one retailer requiring BRCGS, another requiring SQF. Rather than treating that as a series of separate certification projects, it helps to have one system that delivers on the full range of GFSI requirements, regardless of which specific scheme a given buyer needs.

What Is GFSI Certification?

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is not itself a certification body. It is a benchmarking organization that reviews and recognizes several existing food safety certification schemes. That means a facility does not get “GFSI certified” directly – it gets certified to one of the GFSI-recognized standards, through an accredited third-party auditor.

One System, Full GFSI Coverage

GFSI doesn’t just recognize one certification scheme – it recognizes several, all benchmarked against the same underlying GFSI Benchmarking Requirements. That’s the idea behind how HACCP Builder is built: instead of building toward one specific scheme, it delivers the full standard those schemes are all built on top of. Whichever scheme your buyers require, the underlying requirements are already there – so if you serve multiple buyers with different scheme requirements, you don’t need multiple systems, just one that already covers the standard they share.

Where GFSI Goes Beyond HACCP

GFSI requires several elements that sit outside a traditional HACCP plan: management review, risk assessment beyond CCPs (food fraud and food defense), supplier approval and monitoring, internal audits, document control, training and competency records, allergen management, and environmental monitoring.

Why GFSI Certification Matters

• Many retailers and large buyers require it as a condition of doing business.
• It signals a mature, audited food safety system to customers and consumers.
• It is often required to sell into certain retail or export markets.
• A GFSI-recognized certificate is frequently accepted by buyers in place of their own separate audit, reducing how many customer audits a facility has to host each year.

What GFSI Auditors Actually Look For

• A complete, current HACCP plan with documented hazard analysis and CCPs.
• Evidence that monitoring and corrective actions are actually being followed, not just written down.
• Traceability records that can trace a lot forward and backward through the supply chain.
• Organized, retrievable documentation – auditors regularly ask for records going back months, and scrambling through paper files or scattered spreadsheets during an audit is one of the most common causes of findings.

How HACCP Builder Helps You Prepare

Here is specifically what that one-system approach looks like inside HACCP Builder, our food safety software built to cover all of it:

The HACCP Foundation

• Keeps your HACCP plan, hazard analysis, and CCPs in one place, always current.
• Logs corrective actions and monitoring records automatically, so evidence of compliance builds itself as your team works.
• Provides lot-level track & trace, so a mock recall or traceability exercise takes minutes instead of hours.
• Keeps documentation organized and retrievable, so pulling records for an auditor does not mean digging through file cabinets.

The Broader GFSI Programs, Built Into Your Customizable Checklists

• Management commitment and management review, including annual review plans.
• Risk assessments beyond CCPs, including food fraud and food defense vulnerability assessments.
• Supplier approval and monitoring programs.
• Internal audit programs.
• Document control, with version and approval workflows.
• Training records and competency tracking.
• Allergen management programs.
• Environmental monitoring programs, where applicable.

HACCP Builder is also rolling out ready-made default checklists for programs like these, so you’ll be able to start from a template and customize it rather than building each one from scratch. If you’re preparing for a GFSI-recognized audit – or juggling more than one – and want to see how one system delivers on what each buyer requires, contact HACCP Builder.

We can be reached at (866) 577-4030 ext. 800 or via email at [email protected]. Leave us a message or book a free demo today!