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What is a GMA-SAFE audit?
The GMA-SAFE Audit consists of
approximately 630 questions to be answered by
the auditor. It provides sufficient information
to any audit user to determine whether the
inspected facility meets the needs of a
company’s, an association’s or a personal
consultant’s standards/requirements. The data
can be sorted, scored and analyzed for trends by
any user through a sophisticated set of
web-based electronic tools.
What is GMA-SAFE’s core competency?
The GMA-SAFE audit platform represents a
potential food industry savings of $5
billion/year worldwide.
The GMA- SAFE audit is a thorough description
of a food production, handling or storage
facility’s policies and practices, documented by
a skilled auditing practitioner and communicated
through a web based data management & reporting
system that allows individual users of the audit
to determine if the audited facility will meet
their own standards. GMA-SAFE’s core competency
is built upon (1) the fact that it does not
discriminate among standards employed by the
food industry throughout the world and (2) the
reality that no single set of standards could
ever be adopted worldwide that would
simultaneously drive both safety and economic
efficiency. The GMA-SAFE platform is currently
employed as a single vehicle by many, measuring
performance against any standards, eliminating
redundant audits prevalent throughout the
industry today.
What makes the GMA-SAFE audit better than other
audits within the industry?
In an effort to streamline the process, most
audits have been distilled down to a checklist
of quality indicators, relying on the auditor's
subjective judgment to determine whether and to
what degree the facility's systems comply with
those audit criteria. This forces a facility to
focus on ensuring those quality indicators are
in place, whether or not they are relevant to
the facility or truly indicative of their
attention to quality. Even then, the audit tends
to revolve around the audit score, not on the
particulars of what the auditor observed. In a
SAFE audit, the auditor gets to know the
facility's policies and procedures, performs an
inspection of facility records and in-plant
practices, and writes a comprehensive,
objective, narrative "virtual tour" of his/her
observations. This allows the facility to
demonstrate, and you to read, what they are
really doing, without the artificial pressure of
arbitrary audit requirements. Then, you can
decide for yourself whether their systems meet
your expectations.
What does the SAFE audit cover?
The SAFE Audit Checklist is divided into five
Categories: Management Responsibility,
Fundamentals, HACCP and Food Safety Systems,
Quality Systems, and Regulatory Considerations.
Each Category is divided into one or more
Sections, which, in turn, are subdivided into
one or more Items. Each Item covers some
component of the facility's food
safety/protection and quality systems, and
auditors are instructed to investigate each in
an effort to learn (and report) what is really
being done. The auditor answers literally
hundreds of questions while compiling
information for the report. The result is the
most comprehensive 3rd party audit currently
performed.
Why is the SAFE audit so detailed?
One of the primary goals of the SAFE program is
to reduce the number of audits that a facility
faces each year. To do this, the SAFE audit
report must meet the informational needs of many
customers, many of whom may be unknown at the
time of the audit. While few customers will need
or want all of the information in a SAFE audit,
each customer will have specific audit questions
that the SAFE report must answer in order to
make a follow-up audit less likely. The
Checklist was developed by the food industry,
and is continuously reviewed by the GMA-SAFE
Auditor Committee and the GMA-SAFE Operation
Committee to ensure that the audit stays current
with the every changing food industry.
How does SAFE compare with other third party
audits?
The GMA-SAFE program was developed by 26
processor companies but is now governed by all
parts of the food chain (e.g., retailers, food
service, processor and packagers). For the
first time, the food industry's leading
companies have reached a consensus through GMA
to establish a high-quality food safety and
quality systems audit. Instead of customers
individually imposing their own audit criteria
on suppliers, these companies have agreed to a
common, comprehensive checklist that encompasses
virtually all of their food safety and quality
system audit needs. The result is an audit that
is more thorough, representative and informative
than other audit programs.
What are the SAFE audit requirements?
There is only one SAFE requirement: the facility
shall not be producing adulterated or product
that would be considered in violation of a
regulatory requirement (referred to in the SAFE
audit as a Critical Failure). Beyond that, we
found that there is remarkable diversity in what
customers require of their suppliers. What one
customer may consider a necessary component of a
quality program, another may consider nice to
have or not even important. Suppliers everywhere
complain about having to meet audit requirements
that seem unnecessary, are not representative or
are just costly without adding to their
products' safety and quality. Rather than add to
the list of arbitrary audit requirements, SAFE
has chosen to have no separate requirements.
Rather, the auditor collects and reports what
the facility is actually doing, leaving it to
the facility's customers to determine the
requirements.
My company has special audit questions that I
don't see in the SAFE Audit Checklist.
How do I get those questions answered?
There are at least two options. First, feel free
to call the facility. Accepting a SAFE audit
report does not preclude a customer from
requesting more information, or even asking for
another audit. However, it is expected that,
with the detail captured in a SAFE audit report,
most typical questions will be answered, leaving
any follow-up questions requiring only a phone
call or abbreviated visit.
The second option, useful when a customer will
have the same informational need of a number of
suppliers, is to work with GMA-SAFE staff to
develop a supplemental list of questions. Then
each supplier would notify their auditor, when
they request an audit that your company will be
receiving, and answer your supplemental list of
questions in a separate document that will be
provided to you by GMA-SAFE.
Is the SAFE audit scored?
Despite efforts to make audit criteria
definitive and to calibrate auditors, audit
scores are ultimately based on the auditor's
judgment, and judgments will vary between
auditors. This makes the scoring process
inherently subjective and potentially
misleading. Therefore, we feel the strength of
the SAFE audit is in the objective narrative,
and so neither SAFE nor SAFE auditors will score
the audit. However, while the GMA-SAFE Program
does not advocate using scores to interpret an
audit, we do provide a scoring option for those
customers that require it. To use the Scoring
Template, you first provide a value to the
auditor's judgments, and a weight to each audit
section. That way, those elements of the audit
you deem most important can be counted more in
the score than others you feel are less
pertinent. Then, each of your suppliers audit
reports can be assessed and compared using your
Scoring Template to provide a weighted numerical
value. Since the customer determines the
relative value of each judgment and the weight
of each section, it is also up to the customer
to determine what constitutes a "passing" score.
Who has had a SAFE audit?
GMA-SAFE maintains an updated list of
facilities that have scheduled a SAFE audit or
have had a SAFE audit in the last three years
(the supplier has the right to request not to be
included on the list). You can
view the list here.
Do I have to be a member of GMA to view or have
a SAFE audit report?
No. Any processor or warehouse/DC can have a
GMA-SAFE audit and that auditee can share their
audit report with anyone they choose.
What does it cost to see a SAFE audit?
Suppliers pay an administrative fee to SAFE that
covers quality control and maintenance of the
audit report. GMA-SAFE does not charge a
separate fee to suppliers customers to access or
print a SAFE report, or to use any of the SAFE
Internet tools.
How do I get access to a SAFE audit report?
All SAFE audits are accessed online from a
secure GMA-SAFE database. To access a published
audit, you need the unique audit key code and
password. The audit code and password can only
be granted by the supplier but, once provided,
will allow you instantaneous access to the audit
report online. If you are unsure whom at the
facility to contact for this information, call
GMA-SAFE Program Coordinator, Jill Gerken at
708-478-4842.
Do I have to read the entire audit report?
SAFE provides four levels of detail in each
report, so you can tailor the level of detail
that you want to access:
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The full report provides the auditor's
objective description of the facility's
policies, procedures and actual practices;
the auditor's opinion of the system's
apparent effectiveness (referred to as
Auditor Judgment) along with a narrative
summary of that audit Section (i.e., Section
Summary); and the optional Facility's
Response to the Auditor's Observations
(often used by the facility to provide their
"corrective actions").
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A summary report view provides only the 36
Section Summaries (including the Auditor's
Judgment for each Section) and the
Facility's Responses. If the reader sees a
comment, judgment or response and wants more
information, the details for that section
are always available in the full report.
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The Executive Summary is a table of the
auditor's 36 judgments. Some customers use
the Executive Summary to scan the report for
audit sections that the auditor judged as
less than fully developed or implemented,
and can then go to the audit detail to read
what the auditor observed.
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The scoring option provides a numerical
representation and summary of the auditor's
judgments.
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