How to Achieve ISO 22000 Certification

Step 1: Learn about ISO 22000

The first step in your progress towards building your Food Safety Management System is to understand what the ISO 22000 requires and how it will affect your organization.

Step 2: Compare your current system to the requirements

In order to be able to plan your project, you will need to know exactly what needs to be done in your organization to meet the requirements of the standard. Identify what requirements you already meet, and list the ones that need to be addressed. This can be achieved by conducting a Gap Analysis. Use our Gap Analysis Checklist which has been specially designed for this step.

Step 3: Plan your project

Once you have your list of requirements that you need to address, you can start planning your project. Using teams to implement the FSMS is a very efficient and effective approach. It brings in employees from all parts of the organization to participate in the development and implementation, assuring the effectiveness of the final system as well as employee ownership of the system.

Step 4: Design an document your system

With the team approach to implementation, there is a team assigned for each of the processes that must be documented. For example, a team assigned to work on the document control system and procedure will work together to make any changes to the current system to bring it into compliance. Then they will document the procedure as well as any necessary work instructions or forms.

The team uses information from the Gap Analysis to determine what must be done to bring the process into compliance. They may also use a prewritten procedure to assist them. This will provide them with a foundation to work from as well as an example of a process that complies with the ISO 22000 requirements. They will tailor the procedure to reflect your processes.

Step 5: Train employees and an internal audit team

In order to complete the implementation of the system, employees must be trained, both any new processes that have been implemented and on the requirements of the standard and internal auditors must be trained to perform internal audits of your system.

Step 6: Registration audit

When the day of your Registration Audit has arrived, it is time to showcase your Food Safety Management System. The Auditor or Auditors are coming in to see how you have addressed the requirements of ISO 22000, and how you have designed your FSMS

Our Online 22000 Project Manager™ will help you through each of these steps.