SCHEME VERSIONS

FSSC 22000 V7, BRCGS Issue 9, SQF Edition 9 and IFS Food 8: Which Version Applies to You in 2026

By Mthokozisi Nkosi, Food Safety Specialist & Lead Auditor, ASC Food Safety · 15 min read

Checked on 10 September 2026: FSSC 22000 Version 7 published May 2026, BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety Issue 9 published 1 August 2022, BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7 published 28 October 2024, SQF Edition 9 still the audited edition, IFS Food version 8 mandatory since 1 January 2024, GLOBALG.A.P. IFA v6, and ISO 22000:2018 with Amendment 1:2024.

Which food safety standard version is current in September 2026?

As at 10 September 2026 the current versions are FSSC 22000 Version 7 published in May 2026, BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety Issue 9 published on 1 August 2022, BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7 published on 28 October 2024, SQF Edition 9 as the audited edition, IFS Food version 8 mandatory since 1 January 2024, and GLOBALG.A.P. IFA v6 in its Smart and GFS editions.

Two different dates hide inside every one of those entries, and confusing them is what sends buyers to the wrong toolkit. The publication date is when the scheme owner released the text. The audit date, sometimes called the effective date, is when certification bodies begin auditing against it. Those two can be years apart, and in September 2026 there are three schemes where they are apart at the same time. Read the table by the last two columns, not the first two.

Every scheme document above is a free download from its owner. Only the ISO and SANS standards cost money, which is a distinction worth knowing before somebody quotes you for a copy of a standard they got for nothing. ASC keeps the full picture in the ASC standards and certification scheme register, which lists 46 scheme documents and 45 SANS standards in one place.

Which FSSC 22000 version applies to my site, Version 6 or Version 7?

Both, depending on your audit date. FSSC 22000 Version 7 was published in May 2026 and Global ACI has endorsed it. Version 6 audits remain permitted until 30 April 2027. The Version 7 upgrade audit window runs from 1 May 2027 to 30 April 2028, and your certification body then completes the upgrade administration in the FSSC platform.

The step nobody reads is the administrative one behind the audit. Your Version 7 certificate does not issue on the strength of the audit alone, it issues once the certification body has completed the upgrade administration in the FSSC platform. Ask your certification body in writing by when it must complete that step, and book your upgrade audit early enough in the window for the paperwork to clear behind it.

The planning question is which of your three year cycle audits lands in the window. A site certified in mid 2026 meets Version 7 at a surveillance audit rather than a recertification, and surveillance audits carry less time on site. Work backwards from your certificate expiry rather than forwards from today.

Structurally Version 7 is still what Version 6 was: ISO 22000:2018, plus a sector prerequisite programme standard from the ISO 22002 series, plus the FSSC additional requirements. Three sources of requirement, one documented system. We have written the change detail out in full rather than repeating it here, in the FSSC 22000 Version 7 guide for South Africa and in the clause by clause Version 6 to Version 7 change guide. If your worry is what an auditor will actually write up, the list of the 25 most common FSSC 22000 non-conformances is the more useful read.

Has BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety Issue 10 been released yet?

No. Issue 9, published on 1 August 2022, is current and is what you are audited against. The most recent BRCGS update on the subject, dated 11 August 2026, shows development continuing with no announced release date. Anyone selling you Issue 10 readiness training, an Issue 10 gap analysis or an Issue 10 toolkit today is selling you something with no requirement text behind it.

I raise this bluntly because it costs sites money every year. A new issue is normally followed by a stated audit start date several months out, and until that date exists there is nothing to prepare against. Close the Issue 9 gaps you already know about instead, because those gaps do not disappear when a new issue arrives. They carry forward with a new clause number.

Issue 9 runs to nine sections and carries twelve fundamental requirements: 1.1, 2, 3.4, 3.5.1, 3.7, 3.9, 4.3, 4.11, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2 and 7.1. A failure against any one of the fundamentals ends the audit. Read the requirement text for each of those clauses off the standard itself, because BRCGS publishes Issue 9 free of charge and a summary of a fundamental written by somebody else is not the requirement you are audited against.

• Work from the twelve numbers. 1.1, 2, 3.4, 3.5.1, 3.7, 3.9, 4.3, 4.11, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2 and 7.1 are the fundamental clauses in Issue 9.
• Print the clause text from the standard. The published wording of each fundamental is what the auditor tests, not a paraphrase of it.
• Plan around one consequence. A failure against any one of the fundamentals ends the audit.
• Check the position statements too. The interpretation of a clause can move without the standard being republished, which is the subject of the next section.

Rather than restate the whole standard here, the implementation detail sits in the BRCGS Issue 9 implementation guide, the run up to the audit is covered in the 90 day BRCGS Issue 9 audit preparation countdown, and clause 1.1.2 specifically in how to build a BRCGS food safety culture plan. If you have not settled on a scheme at all, the BRCGS versus FSSC 22000 versus IFS decision framework is the place to start.

BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7: published date, audit date and fundamentals

BRCGS Global Standard Packaging Materials Issue 7 was published on 28 October 2024 and audits have been conducted against it since 28 April 2025. It runs to seven sections and carries nine fundamental requirements: 1.1, 2, 3.4, 3.5, 3.10, 3.13, 4.8, 5.4 and 6.1. If you print, convert, mould or extrude packaging that will touch food, this is your standard and not the food safety standard.

There were six months between publication on 28 October 2024 and the audit date of 28 April 2025, and that interval is worth remembering the next time somebody tells you a standard has changed overnight. Publication gives you the text, the audit date gives you the deadline, and the interval in between is the implementation period the scheme owner intends you to use.

Smaller manufacturers who are not yet ready for a full BRCGS audit have a staged route. BRCGS START! Issue 2 comes in a Basic level and an Intermediate level, and ASC supplies documentation for both: START! Basic at R4,000 and START! Intermediate at R4,500 with more than 115 documents. Sites building towards a GFSI recognised scheme in stages without committing to a brand yet often start with the GFSI Intermediate Level toolkit at R4,000.

What are the BRCGS position statements effective 10 August 2026?

Position statements are how BRCGS changes the interpretation of a published standard without republishing it, and the current set took effect on 10 August 2026. Food Safety Issue 9 position statements version 4 is dated 27 April 2026, and Storage and Distribution Issue 4 position statements version 8.1 is dated 28 May 2026. They bind your audit in exactly the way the standard text does.

This is the quiet reason a site can be running the correct issue of the correct standard and still be surprised at the audit. The standard on the shelf has not changed since 2022. The interpretation of it has changed several times, and each change is published as a short document rather than as a new issue. If your document control system tracks the standard but not the position statements, you are tracking half the requirement.

Add a standing item to your management review agenda: confirm the version of the standard, the version of the position statements and the date each was last checked. The same discipline applies to your customer specifications, which are frequently written against an issue that has since been superseded.

A site can hold the right standard, the right issue and the wrong interpretation, and only find out on the audit day.

SQF Edition 10 was published in March 2026, so why are sites still audited to Edition 9?

Because publication and effect are separate events. SQF Edition 10 was published on 4 March 2026, but Edition 9 remains the edition sites are audited against. SQFI has stated that Edition 10 is still in GFSI benchmarking and that its effective date will not be before 1 January 2027. Until a certification body tells you otherwise in writing, Edition 9 is your audit basis.

GFSI benchmarking is the step people forget. GFSI does not certify anybody and there is no GFSI certificate. It benchmarks schemes against its own requirements, and a scheme owner will normally hold a new edition out of audit use until that benchmarking is complete, because a certificate issued against an unbenchmarked edition would not carry GFSI recognition for the customer who asked for it. That is the whole reason for the gap between March 2026 and an effective date no earlier than January 2027.

Reading Edition 10 now is sensible if you have a technical manager with the time. Rewriting your system to it is not, because a document set written to an edition that is not yet in audit use is a document set your auditor cannot accept. Close your Edition 9 findings and treat Edition 10 as reading rather than as a project.

Which IFS Food version applies in 2026?

IFS Food version 8 is current and has been mandatory since 1 January 2024. There is no live transition to manage, no earlier version still in audit use and no announced successor. Of the four major manufacturing schemes, IFS is the only one with nothing pending in September 2026, which makes it the simplest version answer in this article and the shortest section.

The version question for IFS sites is usually not about IFS at all. It arrives as a customer specification that still names version 7, or an internal audit checklist bought years ago and never revised. Both are your problem rather than the scheme’s, and both are worth correcting at your next customer review, because a specification naming a withdrawn version is the kind of document an auditor picks up and follows.

If IFS is on your shortlist rather than in your certificate, the customer driven side of the choice is worked through in the BRCGS, FSSC 22000 and IFS decision framework. In practice the scheme is chosen by the customer who asked for the certificate, not by the site, and the honest version of the conversation is to ask them which scheme and which version they will accept before you buy anything.

One point carries across all four schemes: the ASC risk assessment packs at the ASC risk assessment pack range, R690 each are mapped to BRCGS, IFS and SQF clauses, so a single subject gap such as allergen management or cleaning and disinfection can be closed without buying a whole system.

GLOBALG.A.P. IFA v6 Smart or GFS: which edition does your buyer accept?

GLOBALG.A.P. Integrated Farm Assurance v6 is current and exists in two editions, Smart and GFS. GFSI recognition follows the scope rather than the edition name alone. For fruit and vegetables the recognised programme is GFS, so Smart will not satisfy a buyer asking for GFSI recognition. For aquaculture, Smart/GFS is recognised. IFA for livestock is a discontinued legacy solution with audits only until 31 December 2023.

Read the two scopes side by side, because they do not answer the same way. For fruit and vegetables the GFSI recognised programme is IFA v6 GFS, Principles and Criteria for Fruit and Vegetables, under GFSI scopes BI and BIII, so a Smart certificate will not answer a buyer asking for GFSI recognition. For aquaculture the recognised programme is IFA v6 Smart/GFS, Principles and Criteria for Aquaculture, covering finfish, crustaceans, molluscs and seaweed, under GFSI scope AII, so a Smart aquaculture certificate does carry recognition.

Producers get caught by this because the two editions share a version number, so a certificate that says IFA v6 tells your buyer nothing on its own. The retailer specification usually names GFSI recognition rather than naming the programme, which leaves the producer to check the scope on the certificate and not only the edition name.

Chain of Custody is a separate document with its own version history. Chain of Custody v6.1 was published in November 2022 and replaced v6 on 1 July 2023. If you handle certified produce without growing it, packing, storing or trading it onward, Chain of Custody is your standard and IFA is not.

The prerequisite side of farming is the one place in this article where the ISO restructure of July 2025 did not reach. ISO/TS 22002-3:2011 for farming was reviewed and confirmed in 2025 and remains a Technical Specification, so a farming operation is working to a document published fifteen years ago while its customers work to standards revised last year.

Is ISO 22000:2018 still current, and is it GFSI recognised?

ISO 22000:2018 remains the current edition. It was confirmed in 2023 and carries Amendment 1:2024 on climate action. It has not been replaced and anyone telling you otherwise is confusing it with the FSSC scheme built on top of it. ISO 22000 alone is not GFSI recognised, so a site that needs GFSI recognition needs FSSC 22000 rather than ISO 22000 certification.

The distinction matters commercially. ISO 22000:2018 certification is accredited certification and for many customers it is enough. It stops being enough the moment a buyer specifies a GFSI recognised scheme, at which point the site adds a sector prerequisite programme standard and the FSSC additional requirements. The management system underneath does not change. The requirement set on top of it does.

Amendment 1:2024 is small in wording and easy to miss in a document review. It brings climate change into the consideration of the organisation’s context and the needs and expectations of interested parties. If your context analysis and interested parties register have not been revisited since 2023, that is a finding waiting to be written, and it is the sort of thing an auditor asks about because it is quick to check.

For a full walk through of the clause structure without the scheme layer, the training site guide on ISO 22000 explained, clauses, prerequisite programmes and certification covers it, and the documentation route is the ISO 22000:2018 food manufacturing toolkit at R5,900 with 271 documents, reviewed in the ISO 22000 toolkit guide.

ISO 22002: which prerequisite programme standard applies to you now?

The ISO 22002 prerequisite programme series was restructured in July 2025 and most parts moved from Technical Specification to full International Standard. ISO 22002-100:2025 was published on 29 July 2025 as the new common baseline, alongside ISO 22002-1:2025 food manufacturing, -2:2025 catering, -4:2025 food packaging manufacturing, -5:2025 transport and storage, -6:2025 feed and animal food and -7:2025 retail and wholesale.

ISO/TS 22002-3:2011 for farming is the exception. It was reviewed and confirmed in 2025 and remains a Technical Specification, so farming operations are the one part of the food chain still working from the older document structure.

This restructure dates a lot of systems quietly. A prerequisite manual written against ISO/TS 22002-1:2009 still holds most of the right content, but it cites a document number that no longer describes the current standard and it misses the common baseline layer ISO 22002-100:2025 introduced. In a document review that reads as a system nobody has opened in six years.

1. Find the referenceSearch your prerequisite manual, your HACCP plan and your document register for “22002” and list every place a part number and year appear.
2. Match the part to your food chain categoryCategory C to -1:2025, E to -2:2025, I to -4:2025, G to -5:2025, D to -6:2025, F to -7:2025, farming to ISO/TS 22002-3:2011.
3. Add the baselineISO 22002-100:2025 sits under the sector part as the common requirements layer. Your manual needs to acknowledge both.
4. Re-run the prerequisite verification planThe verification plan is the document auditors use to test whether the prerequisite content is live rather than filed.
5. Record the changeDocument control, revision status, approval and training on the revised content. A silent update is a finding of its own.

Sites building to the South African standards instead of a GFSI scheme use SANS 10330 for HACCP and SANS 10049 for prerequisite programmes, which is what the ASC HACCP and PRPs toolkit at R5,500 is built to, with more than 120 documents and a companion review in the HACCP and PRPs toolkit guide. Both SANS standards must be bought from the SABS.

The ISO standards run on a different clock to the schemes

ISO 14001:2026, edition 4, was published on 15 April 2026 and ISO 14001:2015 is withdrawn at stage 95.99. A sixth edition of ISO 9001 is scheduled for publication on 16 September 2026 and had not been published when ASC checked on 10 September 2026, standing at stage 60.00. Neither has a global transition deadline, because Global ACI has published no transition document.

For the detail, read the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 status for a certified South African site.

The reason is structural. The International Accreditation Forum ceased operations on 1 January 2026 and its work moved to Global Accreditation Cooperation, known as Global ACI. Transition arrangements for a revised management system standard have historically come from the IAF, and as at 10 September 2026 Global ACI had published no transition document for either ISO 9001 or ISO 14001. No global document, no global deadline. Individual accreditation bodies have not all waited, though. UKAS published a technical bulletin on 22 May 2026 requiring certification bodies to transition all certified customers to ISO 14001:2026 by 30 April 2029, with the certification bodies’ own transition by 30 April 2027. Ask your certification body in writing which accreditation body sets its dates, and treat any other date you are shown as unsourced until it names a published document.

Global ACI did move on the food side, endorsing FSSC 22000 Version 7, which is what puts the published Version 7 audit dates beyond argument. Where the endorsement exists the dates are firm. Where it does not exist yet, the honest answer is that the date has not been set.

Where the standard document comes from, and what it costs

Every certification scheme document in this article is a free download from its scheme owner. FSSC 22000, the BRCGS standards and their position statements, the SQF codes, IFS Food and the GLOBALG.A.P. IFA documents cost nothing. ISO standards and SANS standards must be bought, from the ISO Store and the SABS respectively, which is where the real budget line sits.

That split has a practical consequence for an FSSC 22000 site. The scheme document is free, but the two standards underneath it are not, so an FSSC site buys ISO 22000:2018 and the relevant ISO 22002 part before it can read its full requirement set. A BRCGS, IFS or GLOBALG.A.P. site pays nothing for the requirement text at all.

ASC keeps three public registers so you are not hunting: the standards and certification scheme register with 46 scheme documents and 45 SANS standards, the ASC South African legislation register with 413 instruments across 42 parent Acts, and the ASC Codex and guidelines register with 322 Codex texts. Codex texts are free from FAO in every case, so nobody should ever sell you one.

Which toolkit and which course match your version

Match the documentation to the version in audit use, not to the version most recently published. That means FSSC 22000 Version 7 toolkits at R6,350, BRCGS Issue 9 at R6,550, BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7 at R5,900, ISO 22000:2018 at R5,900, GLOBALG.A.P. IFA v6 from R5,950, HACCP and PRPs at R5,500, and the R638 aligned Basic Food Safety set at R699.

Every toolkit is a complete management system in editable Word and Excel: policies, procedures, work instructions, forms and risk assessments, indexed and cross referenced, and every one includes one hour of premium consultation with one of our consultants. The FSSC 22000 index is clause mapped, so you can trace a clause to a document and back, which is exactly what a version conversation with an auditor turns into. The full range sits at the ASC toolkit hub and the purchase terms at the toolkit terms and conditions. The courses are listed at the ASC course catalogue, and ASC does not charge VAT on training, so the price shown is the price paid.

If the constraint is judgement rather than writing time, consultation starts at R480 an hour and a full project is scoped and quoted as one figure. ASC is willing to audit sites it has supplied documents to, so an audit against the correct version comes from the same team. The wider South African picture sits in the South African food legislation guide.

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.