1
Info leTTeR
Fruit, vegetables and potatoes
|
Issue: 03/2013
Quality assurance.
from farm to shop.
Info leTTeR
FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND POTATOES
Editorial
1
Avoiding Double Audits
1
Work and Social Conditions Inspection
2
What To Do After Flooding
2
OPST – Styrian Pome Fruit Specialists
3
Auditor Training in 2013
3
Communicating with Consumers
3
Scheme Participants and Markets
4
News in Brief
4
dear Readers,
In order to spare scheme participants the time
and cost of conducting dual audits, QS regular-
ly carries out thorough comparisons with other
standards. One of these comparisons has just
been conducted, with the upshot that further
IFS audits may now be recognised within the
QS scheme using additional checklists (see
page 1). Thus the same high standards apply
everywhere, since in the QS scheme everyone
from the farm to the shop has to be able to rely
on everyone else. Furthermore, QS is now offer-
ing another service. In future, companies will
be able to have their social management pro-
gramme assessed. For this purpose, economic
operators have developed a special inspection
specifically for this purpose (see page 2). And, as
usual, there’smuchmore from the world of qual-
ity assurance for fruit, vegetables and potatoes.
Happy reading!
Your QS team
Bonn, 02. dezember 2013
ConTenTS
edIToRIal
QS makes scheme participation easier
for its participants by recognising other
standards and thereby avoiding the extra
cost of conducting dual audits. Scheme
participants with IfS-standard certifica-
tion can now benefit from this. With the
new edition of the Scheme Manual, to be
published on 1 Jan 2014, QS will recognise
not just the IfS food audit, but also the IfS
cash&carry/wholesale audit and the IfS
broker audit.
These audits will be rec-
ognised if additional QS
checklists are also com-
pleted during the audit.
The fruit, vegetables and
potatoes advisory board
made this decision at its
last meeting. This deci-
sion follows a thorough
comparison of QS require-
ments and IFS standards,
thus ensuring that consist-
ently high quality is main-
tained throughout the QS
scheme, without incurring
the cost of dual audits.
IfS-QS combined audits for wholesalers
Since there is frequently no product process-
ing in the fresh fruit, vegetables and potatoes
sector, ever more fruit, vegetables and pota-
toes wholesalers with IFS food certification
are starting to seek the new IFS standard
cash&carry/wholesale certification. With the
advisory board’s decision to recognise IFS
cash&carry/wholesale certification, QS is ca-
tering for this new trend.
For scheme participants to obtain eligibility
for QS delivery on the basis of an IFS audit,
an additional QS checklist must be complet-
ed. This serves to confirm that the company
in question additionally meets QS-specific
requirements. As the IFS food and cash&car-
ry/wholesale standards largely contain the
same requirements in the relevant sectors,
the same additional checklist can be used for
both standards.
IfS-QS combined audits for agents
In order to make participation in the QS
scheme simpler for companies that already
have IFS broker certification, from 1 Jan 2014
onwards QS will also recognise IFS-QS com-
bined audits for the IFS broker / QS agent sec-
tor. An additional checklist has been compiled
specifically for agents, i.e. for companies that
engage solely in trading and marketing activ-
ities without any direct contact with goods.
This checklist guarantees that all require-
ments relevant to the QS scheme are checked
during the audit.
We will be glad to answer any questions re-
garding this new recognition procedure.
rEcOgNitiON OF iFS aUditS
aVoIdInG dUal aUdITS
