Azzule Systems, headquartered in Santa Maria, California, is pleased to announce that effective today PrimusGFS Version 3.0 (May 2018) has been successfully benchmarked by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), achieving recognition against the GFSI Guidance Document 7.1 Edition. PrimusGFS is one of the most recognized food safety auditing schemes in the Western Hemisphere, especially among fresh produce producers.
Privately owned and managed by Azzule, the PrimusGFS Standard is a voluntary scheme that establishes requirements for certification in the agricultural crops sector. Version 3.0 features some significant modifications. First, it has simultaneously incorporated all FSMA requirements, including those of the Produce Safety Rule, Preventive Controls for Human Food, and the Sanitary Transportation Rule, as well as other regulatory requirements, such as the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations, along with the standards of Version 7.1 of GFSI’s Guidance Documents for both Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs).
To meet these varied standards, Version 3.0 has expanded from three modules to seven, with use of modules tailored to meet auditees’ specific needs. The modules are as follows: Module 1: Food Safety Management System; Module 2: Farm; Module 3: Indoor Agriculture; Module 4: Harvest Crew; Module 5: Facility; Module 6: HACCP (mandatory for facilities); Module 7: Preventive Controls (optional for facilities). Sustainability and Social Welfare addenda are also available as addons to Version 3.0.
Rebeca Perez, PrimusGFS Scheme Director with Azzule Systems, welcomed the news “We are grateful that GFSI has recognized the PrimusGFS v3.0 scheme as meeting the universal food safety standards endorsed and accepted by the largest retailers worldwide. Along with our new Sustainability and the soon to be released Social Welfare Standard, we believe that our audits now satisfy the needs of users on a truly global scale. With Azzule as the scheme owner, the audits also have the added advantage of populating our Azzule Supply Chain site with critical food safety data that offers food producers the knowledge necessary to take every action possible to ensure the safety of their products. Additionally”, Perez added, “we want to recognize and offer our gratitude to our certification bodies and all PrimusGFS users.”
Updated Scheme Documents and Interpretation Guidelines are available at the PrimusGFS website www.primusgfs.com. To inquire about scheduling a PrimusGFS audit please contact one of our approved Certification Bodies http://www.primusgfs.com/Approved/Approved.aspx. For Public/ Private PrimusGFS training information, please contact one of our approved Training Centers http://www.primusgfs.com/TrainingProviders/TrainingProviders.aspx.
Source: Azzule Systems
