International Featured Standards (IFS)

The IFS Food Standard reviews the products and production processes to evaluate a food producer’s ability to produce safe, authentic, and quality products according to legal requirements and customer specifications.

Demonstrate established processes to ensure food and product safety, that meet customer specifications.

Key Benefits

Global Safety and Legality Standards

IFS comprise different food and non-food standards, covering processes along the supply chain. The standards are used by manufacturers and retailers worldwide to meet new requirements for quality, transparency and efficiency.

Recognition

IFS has obtained GFSI recognition for IFS Food and IFS PACsecure.

IFS Certification

The IFS Standards have been developed by stakeholders involved in all parts of the supply chain. IFS Certification is open to food manufacturers, brokers, logistics providers, manufacturers of household and hygiene products as well as wholesalers and retailers.

What’s in the Standards?

The IFS comprises different food and food supply chain standards.

All standards are process standards which help users when implementing legal provisions regarding food and/or product safety and provide uniform guidelines on food, product safety and quality. Key features in IFS standards are senior management responsibility, management systems control, HACCP, personnel hygiene, specifications and recipe/formula compliance, foreign material management, traceability system, internal audits, recalls and withdrawals management and corrective actions.

The Standards

IFS Standards are risk-based and process-oriented. Certification to an IFS Standard is intended to help establish a uniform quality assurance system, optimising processes and developing action plans to improve performance. Certification to these internationally recognised standards will improve relations with customers and authorities and create new business opportunities.

View IFS Version 8 released 2023

Next Steps

Read and learn the applicable IFS audit criteria
Develop and implement the required food safety and quality programs, policies and procedures
Gather at least two months of records to demonstrate compliance with audit criteria
Get in touch and let us help you on your journey to certification

IFS Food Scope

IFS Food can only be applied when a product is “processed” or when there is a hazard of product contamination from primary packing. It shall include the full activities of the site, including all production lines and products manufactured by the production site (both customer branded products and company’s own branded products). Certification is always site-specific (one legal entity, one address, one certificate), in relation to the actual processing activities of the site.