Frequently Asked Questions

There are quick start guides for all of our products. A good first step is to understand the requirements by purchasing or downloading the Global Standard you're interested in from the BRCGS Bookshop and completing an 'understanding the requirements' or sites training course, before contacting the certification body of your choice for the audit.

We don't control the final cost of audit. This is entirely the site's agreed rate with their chosen certification body.

Non-conformities are classified as critical, major or minor depending on their severity against brand risk. Any critical non compliance is a failure or certificate withdrawal. The site has a certain amount of time to correct any resultant issues to be awarded a certificate.

We operate a special service where sites can talk privately about the performance of an auditor. 'Tell BRCGS' is followed up by us and we have a number of compliance auditors that can help investigate any issues.

BRCGS offers a search facility through the BRCGS Directory which selects available certification bodies by geography and scheme. We also performance manage every partner and give them a one to five star rating based on a number of KPIs we measure and track. You may use this as further information that can help you make the right choice.