IFS certification: A boost to confidence!

Meralliance (Armoric, Narvik) has become the first firm in its business sector in France to be certified as IFS version 4.

This certification confirms the confidence that distributors can have in Meralliance, which supplies French supermarkets with products under its own brand and which today holds 40% of the French market in smoked salmon as distributor brands.
It illustrates once again the strategy established 10 years ago by the company that committed to a genuine policy of QSE (quality/health/environment) through significant people, financial, and technical investments in order to offer to its customers quality and completely safe products and services.

What is IFS certification?

Distributors regularly perform food safety audits of the sites of those supplying food products turned into their brands (distributor brands, in particular). These audits can be performed by independent auditors commissioned by specialised organisations.
In 2002, German distributors gathered within the Hauptverband des Deutschen Einzelhandels (HDE) developed a first common core for all these auditing standards called International Food Standard, or IFS.

In 2003, French distributors of the Association of Sales and Distribution Companies (FCD) joined this initiative and contributed to the evolution of the IFS. This standard made it possible to pool audits and to apply a standard scale to all suppliers.
336 requirements, very often recurring throughout all specifications, are in this way monitored. They are subdivided according to the following chapters:
· Quality System Management ,
· Management’s Responsibilities,
· Resource Management,
· Producing the Product,
· Measurements, Analyses and Improvements.

Eventually, it is probable that only IFS-certified suppliers can aspire to supply to mass supermarket distribution.

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