How To Get Food Alliance Certified For A Food or Beverage Product

Do you need information on how to get Food Alliance certification for your food or beverage product? Read along as we bring you up to speed with these practical steps.

The Food Alliance certificate helps to improve the integrity of your food or beverage product globally. To get started, visit the program’s website for the standards and the relevant guide related to your product. 

On the website, you’d be required to make a registration as an applicant for the Food Alliance certificate. The registration helps the Food Alliance organization with the basic information needed to process your certification application.

Download & Study The Standards

After successful registration, each applicant is expected to download a copy of the Food Alliance certification standards. The standards contain the requirements needed to help you through the audit and certification process in general. With the standards, you also get a list of your team’s documents to ensure a smooth audit. Like every other food processing certification, Food Alliance expects that every applicant studies the standards and applies them accordingly.

Submit The Audit Request Form

In the process of downloading the standards, you have an option to download the “Audit Request Form.” You don’t need to do so immediately since you still have to read through the standards and familiarise yourself with them. The applicants should fill the audit request Form when ready to be audited by the Food Alliance team. The audit request Form contains details like the proposed date for the audit and other specifications attached to the procedure.

Audit With The CB’s Inspector 

With your audit request approved, you can contact the certification body (CB) for the date of your audit. The certificate body is a licensed individual or organization that coordinates the audits for all Food Alliance seeking applicants. To get the best of the audit or inspection, please ensure you carry out a pre-audit session with your team using the standards as a guide. The audit, in general, should take a few days and sometimes require that production stops or be reduced for effective screening.

The Audit Review Phase 

After proper inspection of your facility, production materials, work etiquette, and operators’ profile, the inspector sends the review report. The inspector is only licensed to carry out the screening but does not approve your food or beverage product for the Food Alliance certificate. Expect the review process to take a few weeks, all things considered. You’d be prompted on the progress of the review.  

Payment & Licensing Agreements

After the review process and approval from the Food Alliance team, you’d receive a notification on the status of your application. Once approved, the program immediately forwards the licensing agreements, which indicate the terms and conditions of the Food Alliance certificate. Alongside these legal forms is the invoice for the certificate, which is expected to be cleared. After reviewing the terms and conditions, sign the documents and make the payment. 

Your certificate would be sent to you via email and other forms as requested.