Strategic Cooperation FSSC 22000 and SYNERGY 22000


On 17th January 2012 the management of FSSC and of Synergy have reached
agreement on a joint future strategy regarding the use of ISO 22000 for
developing GFSI recognised schemes, as a basis for certification of Food Safety
Management Systems (FSMS) in food supply chains worldwide.

Both FSSC 22000 and Synergy 22000 schemes were initially developed in parallel with
the same goal: provide a worldwide ISO 22000 based and GFSI recognised FSMS
scheme as an alternative to private standards on the FSMS certification market.

The cooperation will solve the user-unfriendly and confusing situation having two
equivalent schemes with useless competition, and generate synergies involving all
available forces and competences behind the common objective, within FSSC
structures and representations.

FSSC 22000 will remain the international certification scheme to be accepted by the
Global Food Safety Initiative, Synergy 22000 will not apply anymore for such
acceptance.

Synergy will remain supporting manufacturers who have been Synergy 22000 certified
and will work together with FSSC for those of them who want to have their certificate
transformed into an FSSC 22000 certificate.

The management of Synergy will start working together with the management of FSSC
to the benefit of supply chains worldwide that seek food safety certification based on
ISO 22000 and will support the rapid growth of FSSC 22000 and the further extension
of its scopes with their wide experience and networks in food safety certification.

So called Synergy 22000 certification is a set of two complementary standards allowing developing a reliable FSMS, compliant with the requirements of the guidance document of the Global Food Safety Initiative :

	ISO 22000, Food safety management systems — Requirements for any organization in the food chain (© ISO), and either
	PRP 22000, Food safety management system — Prerequisite Programmes (PRPs) requirements for any organization in the food chain (© Synergy), or
	ISO TS 22002-1 - Prerequisite programmes on food safety – Part 1: Food manufacturing (© ISO).

The ISO 22000 standard, applicable to the entire food chain for featuring and operating a food safety management system requires that prerequisite programmes (PRPs) shall be established, implemented and maintained according to the size and type of the operation and the nature of the products being manufactured and/or handled, but does not specify those PRPs.

Aim of the Synergy 22000 certification scheme is to complete the ISO 22000 requirements in order to comply with GFSI key elements and endorsement criteria. For this purpose, two main issues have to be addressed:

	prerequisite programmes (PRPs) shall be specified – which is the purpose or both PRP 22000 or ISO TS 22002-1 standards;
	operating procedures of the certification scheme or “protocol” shall be specified – which is the purpose or the Synergy 22000 Certification Scheme standard.

The combination of ISO 22000 & PRP 22000 is intended to be applicable to the entire food chain & related activities. The combination of ISO 22000 & ISO TS 22002-1 is is intended to be applicable only to the food processing or manufacturing step of the food chain.