REGULATORY · NRCS COMPULSORY SPECIFICATIONS

NRCS Compulsory Specifications for Food: What Manufacturers, Importers and Exporters Must Have on File

By Mthokozisi Nkosi, Food Safety Specialist & Lead Auditor, ASC Food Safety · 14 min read

A compulsory specification, cited as a VC, is law, enforced by the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications under the NRCS Act 5 of 2008, and it binds you whether or not you hold a certification. A SANS standard from the SABS is voluntary until legislation references it. Canned fish, canned meat and processed meat are among the food categories under VC control, so confirm scope product by product.

What is a compulsory specification and how is it different from a SANS standard?

A compulsory specification, cited as a VC, is a technical requirement made law by publication in the Government Gazette and enforced by the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications under the NRCS Act 5 of 2008. A SANS standard published by the SABS is voluntary. You choose whether to apply it. A SANS becomes binding only where a compulsory specification or a regulation incorporates it by reference.

The distinction confuses people because the two documents look alike. Both are technical, both carry numbered clauses, both talk about limits and methods. The difference is not in the document, it is in what happens when you ignore it. Ignoring a voluntary standard is a commercial risk with your customer. Ignoring a compulsory specification is a contravention, and the regulator does not need your customer’s permission to act on it.

The second thing worth understanding is the split that happened in 2008. The SABS was previously both the standards writer and the regulator. The NRCS Act 5 of 2008 separated those functions, leaving the SABS to develop standards and creating the NRCS as the regulator that enforces compulsory specifications and, since the Legal Metrology Act 9 of 2014 came into force, legal metrology as well. So when a supplier tells you their product is “SABS approved”, ask what they mean. Certification to a SANS standard, a test report from a laboratory, and compliance with a compulsory specification are three different things, and only the third one is a legal position.

One row deserves emphasis. Certification and compulsory specification compliance are not substitutes. I have stood in factories with a current FSSC 22000 certificate on the wall and a compulsory specification obligation nobody in the building could describe. The certification auditor was not there to check it, because it is not their scheme. The NRCS inspector is, and they arrive without asking whether it suits your production schedule.

A certificate is evidence you satisfied a scheme. A compulsory specification is a duty you owe whether or not anyone ever audits you.

Which food and food contact categories fall under NRCS control?

Several preserved and processed protein categories sit under compulsory specifications: canned fish, canned marine molluscs and canned crustaceans under VC 8014, canned meat products under VC 8019, processed meat products under VC 9100, frozen fish and frozen marine molluscs under VC 8017, and smoked snoek under VC 8021. Confirm the current version and the exact scope of each against the list the NRCS publishes.

I have deliberately described those specifications by subject rather than reciting clauses out of them. VC numbers, their editions and their scope statements are amended over time, and a scope statement is the part that decides whether your product is in or out. A product that sounds like a canned meat product commercially may fall outside the scope of the canned meat specification and inside the scope of the processed meat one, or under neither. That decision belongs to the current text of the specification, read against your actual formulation and process, and confirmed with the regulator.

Dairy is the category that generates the most confusion in our inbox, because people assume it must be an NRCS matter. Composition, grading, packing and marking requirements for dairy products sit under the Agricultural Product Standards Act 119 of 1990, administered by the Department of Agriculture, which separated from DALRRD on 1 April 2025 by Proclamation 199 of 2024. Whether any compulsory specification also touches a particular dairy related product is a question to confirm, not to assume in either direction. The same caution applies to food contact materials and packaging: check whether a compulsory specification covers the article before you rely on a supplier declaration.

Here is the practical method for settling the question, and it works the same way for a new product launch, an imported consignment, or a range inherited through an acquisition.

1. Describe the product in regulatory languageComposition with percentages, thermal or other process applied, packaging format and material, shelf stability basis, storage condition, pack size and the customs tariff heading you intend to use. Marketing names are useless here.
2. Check it against the published listWork through the compulsory specifications the NRCS publishes for foodstuffs and read the scope clause of anything close, not the title. Titles mislead, scope clauses do not.
3. Check the other regulators in parallelAgricultural Product Standards Act requirements through the Department of Agriculture, foodstuffs requirements under the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972, and where the product edges towards a health claim, the classification question we cover in our guide to food, supplement or medicine classification.
4. Get the answer in writingA written confirmation of scope, from the regulator or from an adviser who states the basis, is the document that protects the person who signed the purchase order. Verbal is worth nothing at a port.
5. Record it on your regulatory registerOne line per product, naming the instrument that applies, the date the position was confirmed, who confirmed it and when it is due for review. Specifications get amended, and nobody sends you a letter.

What is a Letter of Authority, and does a food product need one?

A Letter of Authority is one of the approval instruments the NRCS uses under the NRCS Act 5 of 2008 to permit a regulated product onto the market, and it is most familiar in the electrotechnical and automotive sectors. Food compulsory specifications more commonly operate through facility registration, permits, consignment release and inspection. Do not assume which instrument governs your product. Confirm the route with the NRCS before you buy stock.

I am being careful here on purpose. The word “LOA” gets used loosely by freight agents and by overseas suppliers who have dealt with a different NRCS business unit, and I have seen importers spend weeks chasing an approval instrument that was never the right one for their category, while the correct registration sat unstarted. The instrument matters because it determines the lead time, the documents required and who applies, the manufacturer or the importer.

What is common across the instruments is the underlying logic, and it is worth understanding even before you know which one applies to you.

That last box is the one importers underestimate. When you put your name and address on a label as the person responsible for the product in South Africa, you have taken on the regulatory relationship. The overseas manufacturer is not the party a South African inspector will pursue. Section 61 of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 makes the same point in civil terms: liability for harm caused by unsafe goods, product failure, defects or hazards, or by inadequate instructions or warnings, reaches producers, importers, distributors and retailers, irrespective of negligence.

What must an importer do before and at the port of entry?

Our guide to importing food into South Africa covers the general import picture. This section covers the compulsory specification layer that sits on top of it. Three clearances can apply to one container: customs release, Port Health inspection under the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972, and NRCS requirements where a VC covers the goods.

The work that decides the outcome happens before shipping, not at the port, because a container in a yard accrues cost every day. Port Health inspects imported foodstuffs at points of entry and can detain a consignment. That power exists under the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972 and is exercised by health officials, not by the NRCS. The NRCS acts under its own mandate, on products under compulsory specification and on legal metrology, which covers net quantity marking on prepackaged goods under the Legal Metrology Act 9 of 2014 with SANS 289 incorporated under it. A consignment can pass one and be stopped by the other, and I have watched importers celebrate a customs release two days before a hold arrived from a different desk entirely.

• Product classification confirmed in writing before the order is placed, not after the vessel sails
• Confirmation of which approval, registration or permit instrument applies, and evidence that it is in place and current
• Artwork reviewed against R146 of 2010 before printing, including the importer name and address, allergens under regulation 43, date marking under regulation 12 and batch identification under regulation 11
• Net quantity declaration checked against the Legal Metrology Act 9 of 2014 and SANS 289, including units, digit height, placement and prominence
• Manufacturer documentation pack: specification, process description, certificates of analysis for the shipped batches, and any test reports the specification calls for
• Traceability from the shipped batch back to a production record at the manufacturing site, demonstrated before you rely on it
• A named person in your business responsible for the regulatory file, with a deputy, because holds do not wait for annual leave
• A written plan for what happens if the consignment is held, agreed with the freight forwarder and the warehouse before it is needed

The supplier side of this is a food safety question as much as a regulatory one. If your overseas manufacturer cannot produce a specification, a process description and batch traceability on request, that is the same weakness that shows up in a supplier approval finding. The Supplier and Purchased Material Approval Risk Assessment Template (RA11) at R690 gives you the register and the approval procedure to score exactly that,, and the border process itself is covered in the import guide linked at the top of this section.

Worked example: one container of canned fish, step by step

An importer in Gqeberha plans a container of canned pilchards in tomato sauce from an overseas cannery, under their own brand, for retail. Canned fish is a category covered by a compulsory specification, VC 8014, so the classification question is live from day one. This is the sequence that keeps the container moving, with the decision points named.

1. Week minus twelve: classify the productWrite the full description: species, pack format, can size, sauce composition, sterilisation process and tariff heading. Check it against the scope of the applicable compulsory specification and confirm the position in writing. If canned fish, canned marine molluscs and canned crustaceans under VC 8014 is the relevant instrument, confirm the current version and scope with the NRCS rather than relying on this sentence.
2. Week minus eleven: confirm the instrument and who appliesEstablish with the NRCS whether the route is a registration, a permit, a consignment approval or something else, what the lead time is, and whether the applicant is the overseas manufacturer or you as the importer. Start the application immediately, because lead time is the constraint nobody plans for.
3. Week minus ten: approve the supplier properlySpecification signed, process description obtained, allergen position stated in writing, thermal process validation evidence requested, and a traceability test run on an existing batch. If the cannery cannot answer within a fortnight, that is your answer about how a recall would go.
4. Week minus eight: finalise the artworkName of the foodstuff, importer name and address, ingredients in descending order, storage conditions, net contents in SI units under regulation 9 of R146 of 2010, country of origin under regulation 10, batch identification under regulation 11, date marking under regulation 12, allergens under regulation 43 and the nutrition table under regulation 50 where required. Net quantity marking checked against SANS 289. Fish is a regulation 43 allergen, so the declaration must be right on the first print run.
5. Week minus six: assemble the consignment documentation packCertificates of analysis for the production batches, any test reports the specification requires, the approval or registration evidence, the commercial invoice and packing list matched to the batch codes, and label proofs as they will appear on the shelf.
6. Week minus four: brief the freight forwarder in writingTell them which regulators are involved, who the responsible person is on your side, and what to do if a hold is placed. Give them the documentation pack in advance rather than in response to a query.
7. Arrival: manage three clearances in parallelCustoms release, Port Health inspection, and NRCS requirements where the compulsory specification applies. Track each separately. Do not report the container as cleared until all applicable holds are lifted.
8. Post arrival: close the loopFile the inspection outcome, any samples drawn and their results, and any observations made, against the product line on your regulatory register. The next consignment is easier only if this one was recorded.

What are the levy and reporting obligations?

The NRCS Act 5 of 2008 provides for levies and fees on regulated products. Where a levy applies to your category, it is generally calculated from declared quantities or values submitted on a periodic return, and the duty to declare falls on the manufacturer or importer, not on the freight agent. Rates, bases and return formats change, so confirm the current position directly with the NRCS.

I will not publish a levy rate or a fee amount in this article, and you should be sceptical of any article that does. These figures are adjusted, and an out of date number is worse than no number because somebody will budget from it. What I will say is that the reporting obligation is the part businesses forget, and forgetting it produces a different kind of problem from paying late. A missed return is a compliance failure with a date attached, visible to an inspector, and it is the sort of finding that turns a routine visit into a longer one.

Change notification is the row I would underline. A reformulation that looks harmless internally, such as a new sauce supplier or a change of can size, can move a product across a scope boundary, alter a net quantity declaration or invalidate the basis on which an approval was granted. Build the regulatory question into your change control so that it is asked before the change, not discovered after it.

What happens during an NRCS factory inspection and sampling visit?

Expect an inspector working under the NRCS Act 5 of 2008 to establish what you make, confirm which compulsory specification applies, examine the process and its controls, review records for the batches currently in stock or on the market, check labelling and net quantity marking, follow traceability from raw material to despatch, and draw samples for testing. Findings are recorded and a response is required within a stated period.

The visit is not a certification audit and it does not follow a scheme checklist. An inspector is establishing whether the product on the line and in the warehouse complies with a legal requirement, and whether you can show it. That is a narrower question than a food safety audit asks, and a harder one to answer improvisationally, because you cannot argue your way out of a measurement.

Sampling is the part sites handle worst. When a sample is drawn, record it properly at the time: what was drawn, from which batch, how much, who drew it, who witnessed it, and what your retained counterpart sample is. If a result later comes back adverse, that record is the only thing that lets you interrogate the result rather than simply absorb it. Sites that keep no counterpart sample have surrendered the argument before it starts.

• Product list with the applicable instrument named against each line, and the date the position was last confirmed
• Approval, registration or permit evidence, current and easy to find
• Process description and validation evidence for the controls the specification depends on, such as thermal process records
• Batch records for the stock currently held, complete and signed at the time rather than reconstructed
• Label proofs matched to the batches on the floor, plus the net quantity control records under SANS 1841 style quantity control
• Traceability, one step back and one step forward, demonstrable within the visit
• Previous inspection findings with the corrective action taken, the evidence, and the verification of effectiveness
• A sample register showing every sample drawn by any regulator, with the counterpart sample retained

Everything on that list is ordinary food safety documentation done properly. If your prerequisite programmes and HACCP records are already in order, an NRCS visit is mostly a filing exercise. If they are not, the visit exposes it quickly. The HACCP and PRPs Document Templates Toolkit at R5,500 carries 120 or more documents built to SANS 10330 and SANS 10049, including one hour of premium consultation with one of our consultants, and it is the fastest route to the record set an inspector will ask for.

What happens when a consignment is detained or embargoed?

When a hold is placed under the NRCS Act 5 of 2008, the stock cannot be sold or moved for sale until it is lifted. You will normally be told what the defect is and what is required to resolve it. The usual routes are correction, re-export or destruction. Storage, demurrage and reworking costs sit with you, so the speed of your response decides the size of the loss.

Two instincts make it worse. The first is to argue the classification at the moment of detention. That argument may well be correct, but the time to make it was before the order was placed, with a written position in hand. Arguing it at a port, without documentation, costs days you are paying for. The second is silence. A hold that is not actively worked drifts, and the commercial pressure inside your business then produces the third mistake, which is moving or selling stock that is under embargo. That converts a regulatory problem into a much more serious one.

1. Get the finding in writing and read it preciselyWhich product, which batches, which requirement, which regulator, and what is required to release. Vague internal summaries of a hold cause half the delay that follows.
2. Freeze the stock properlyPhysically segregate it, label it as under embargo, block it in the system, and tell despatch and sales the same day. Assume every batch of the same product is in question until told otherwise.
3. Assemble the evidence you already haveSpecification, approval evidence, batch records, certificates of analysis, label proofs and the traceability chain, in one pack, in the order the finding raises them.
4. Establish whether the defect is correctableRelabelling, re-weighing or re-marking may resolve a labelling or net quantity defect. A compositional or safety defect usually cannot be corrected and points to re-export or destruction.
5. Propose a documented resolution, do not wait to be toldSet out what you propose to do, under what supervision, with what verification, and by when. A regulator responds better to a proposal with evidence than to a request for guidance.
6. Investigate the cause and fix it upstreamRoot cause on the supplier, the artwork approval route or the classification decision. A hold that recurs on the next consignment is the finding that changes how you are treated.
7. Record the whole episode on the product fileFinding, correspondence, resolution, cost and the control change made. This is what turns an expensive month into an asset.

Traceability is the capability that decides how wide the damage spreads. If you can show precisely which batches are affected and where every one of them is, the hold stays narrow. If you cannot, it widens to everything that shares a label. The Traceability, Withdrawal and Recall Risk Assessment Template (RA20) at R690 scores exactly where a chain breaks, including chains that end at an importer’s warehouse instead of a manufacturing batch.

How should you structure the regulatory file so an inspection is uneventful?

Build one indexed file per product, not one filing cabinet per department, because a compulsory specification, R146 of 2010 and the Legal Metrology Act 9 of 2014 all ask about the same product. It holds the regulatory position, the approval evidence, the specification and process, the label pack, the net quantity evidence, the batch record location, the traceability demonstration and the regulator history. An inspector should be able to work through it unaided.

The reason this works is simple. Inspections go badly when the answer to a question is “that will be with production, let me call someone”. Every one of those calls extends the visit and signals that the system is assembled rather than maintained. A single indexed file per product turns an inspection into a reading exercise, which is exactly what you want it to be.

Section 8 is the one that prevents the other seven from going stale. Most regulatory failures I investigate are not decisions to break a rule. They are changes made by people who did not know a regulatory question existed: a new supplier of an ingredient, a pack size adjusted for a promotion, a claim added to artwork by a designer working from a marketing brief. Put the regulatory question into the change control form and most of that disappears.

How does a VC sit alongside R146 labelling and legal metrology?

They stack, they do not substitute. R146 of 2010 applies to prepackaged foodstuffs on its own terms. A compulsory specification adds product requirements on top. The Legal Metrology Act 9 of 2014, with SANS 289 incorporated under it by Notice 877 in Government Gazette 41854 of 24 August 2018 as amended, governs the net quantity declaration. A label can satisfy one layer and fail another.

Under R146 of 2010, the mandatory particulars sit in regulation 9: the name of the foodstuff, the name and address of the responsible party, instructions for use, ingredients in descending order, storage conditions and net contents in SI units. Country of origin sits at regulation 10, batch identification at regulation 11, date marking at regulation 12, allergens at regulation 43 and the nutrition table at regulation 50. For South African labels the regulation 43 allergen list is egg, cow’s milk, crustaceans and molluscs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, tree nuts, and cereals containing gluten. That list matters especially for the fishery categories under compulsory specification, and our allergen labelling guide works through the declaration mechanics.

Legal metrology is where importers get caught most often, because overseas artwork is designed for a different rulebook. SANS 289:2022, titled labelling requirements for prepackaged products and general requirements for the sale of goods subject to legal metrology control, sets permitted units, minimum digit heights, placement and prominence. SANS 1841 covers quantity control of the contents. Short measure prepackages are an offence, and a declaration in the wrong unit or at the wrong digit height is a defect on every pack in the container. For a broader map of how the instruments fit together, our guide to South African food legislation is the reference point, and the common food labelling mistakes article covers the defects that recur.

Category regulations add a fourth layer where they apply. Sweetener use and its label statements are governed by R.733 of 10 September 2012, including the non-nutritive sweetener descriptor and the “Contains phenylalanine” statement where aspartame is used. The Regulations Relating to Soft Drinks, R.1769 of 9 August 1985 as amended by Notice R.317 of 17 April 2012, require a high caffeine content statement where a soft drink contains more than 150 mg of caffeine per litre. Fortification of wheat flour, maize meal and wheat bread is mandatory under R.504 of 7 April 2003 as amended by R.1206 of 2008. None of these are NRCS instruments, which is precisely the point: knowing your VC position tells you nothing about the other three layers.

What changes when you are exporting rather than importing?

Two rulebooks apply at once: the South African requirements on the product and the site, including any compulsory specification and R146 of 2010, and the importing country’s requirements on the consignment. Which South African authority issues export documentation depends on the commodity and the destination, and it is not always the NRCS. Confirm the competent authority for your specific product and market before you make a commitment to a buyer.

I hedge that deliberately. Export certification arrangements for fishery products, meat products and agricultural products sit with different authorities, and arrangements with particular destination markets are renegotiated over time. The failure mode is an exporter who assumes a certificate can be obtained in a week, discovers that the site needs to be on an approved establishment list first, and has already contracted a delivery date. Confirm the route, the authority and the lead time before you sign anything.

What travels with you regardless of destination is the evidence base. An importing authority asks the same underlying questions a South African inspector asks: what is the product, what process controls it, what records show the controls were applied, who is responsible, and can you trace it. A site with a properly maintained regulatory file and a working food safety management system answers those in a morning. A site without one spends three weeks assembling a pack, and the buyer notices. If you are building that system from scratch, the FSSC 22000 Food Manufacturing Document Templates Toolkit at R6,350 carries 260 or more documents with a clause mapped index, so you can trace a clause to a document and back, and it includes one hour of premium consultation with one of our consultants.

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Frequently asked questions

Published by ASC Food Safety, South African food safety and quality consultants. This article is general guidance and not a substitute for certification-specific advice. VC numbers, scopes, levies and fees are amended over time: confirm the current position for your product with the NRCS or through an ASC regulatory review before acting on it.