The New Food Safety Challenge: Proving That Controls Work
The updates to SQF Edition 10 and FSSC 22000 V7 shift the focus from the documentary existence of systems to demonstrating that controls work in real-world operations. SQF reinforces core clauses, food safety culture, change management, environmental monitoring, supplier management, and traceability, increasing the impact of certain audit findings. FSSC 22000 V7 incorporates the ISO 22002-x:2025 series for PRPs and strengthens requirements on food waste, storage, transportation, food defense and fraud, laboratories, water, traceability, and sustainable packaging design. For the industry, the risk of non-compliance increases if operational changes are not assessed, documented, and verified. The priority is to generate objective evidence, conduct gap analysis, and implement effective controls.
The updates to SQF Edition 10 and FSSC 22000 V7 place greater emphasis on culture, risk management, and evidence.
Even when a facility has a well-structured management system, it faces risks when a person changes roles, equipment is modified, new technology is introduced, a formulation is adjusted, or a verification activity is not executed as planned.
This demonstrates that food safety must no longer exist only in written procedures. The challenge lies in ensuring that controls not only exist, but that they work under real production conditions and that the organization can prove it.
This was one of the central points of the conference “Updates to SQF Edition 10 and FSSC 22000 V7,” delivered by Eduardo Rondero, representative of Global Standards Certification, during the Second edition of the One Health Summit Mexico 2026.
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During the session, the specialist explained the main changes facing organizations certified under both schemes and how these adjustments drive the food safety discussion toward increasingly operational aspects.
In SQF Edition 10, for example, elements such as core clauses, food safety culture, change management, environmental monitoring, and traceability carry greater weight.
In FSSC 22000 V7, the changes follow a different path, with a new structure for prerequisite programs and adjustments to additional requirements, as well as aspects related to laboratories, food defense and fraud, packaging design, and traceability.
Although these are distinct updates, there is a common ground: the need to move from a system that can be demonstrated in documents to one that can also be sustained with evidence of what occurs in operations.
For food companies, this means reviewing not only what procedures they have, but how they are applied, who executes them, what happens when something changes, and what information is available to demonstrate that risks are under control.
Even when a facility has a well-structured management system, it faces risks when a person changes roles, equipment is modified, new technology is introduced, a formulation is adjusted, or a verification activity is not executed as planned.
This demonstrates that food safety must no longer exist only in written procedures. The challenge lies in ensuring that controls not only exist, but that they work under real production conditions and that the organization can prove it.
This was one of the central points of the conference “Updates to SQF Edition 10 and FSSC 22000 V7,” delivered by Eduardo Rondero, representative of Global Standards Certification, during the Second edition of the One Health Summit Mexico 2026.
.
.
During the session, the specialist explained the main changes facing organizations certified under both schemes and how these adjustments drive the food safety discussion toward increasingly operational aspects.
In SQF Edition 10, for example, elements such as core clauses, food safety culture, change management, environmental monitoring, and traceability carry greater weight.
In FSSC 22000 V7, the changes follow a different path, with a new structure for prerequisite programs and adjustments to additional requirements, as well as aspects related to laboratories, food defense and fraud, packaging design, and traceability.
Although these are distinct updates, there is a common ground: the need to move from a system that can be demonstrated in documents to one that can also be sustained with evidence of what occurs in operations.
For food companies, this means reviewing not only what procedures they have, but how they are applied, who executes them, what happens when something changes, and what information is available to demonstrate that risks are under control.
SQF Edition 10: Greater Weight for Critical Points
In the case of SQF Edition 10 (the international Safe Quality Food certification program), one of the most visible changes is in how audit findings are evaluated. The new edition maintains the general scoring logic but introduces so-called core clauses, which identify requirements considered essential for preventing food safety failures.
The goal is for the score to better reflect the level of risk at a facility and not treat all non-conformities as if they carried the same weight.
In practical terms, a minor non-conformity retains a one-point deduction and a major one a five-point deduction; however, when the finding corresponds to a core clause, the deduction increases to two and seven points, respectively. A critical non-conformity retains a deduction of 50 points.
This matters because it changes the interpretation of the audit. A facility may have a broad system and a high score, but if it has a failure in an element considered fundamental, that deviation will have a greater impact on its result.
SQFI notes that these clauses represent foundational elements of the management system and that their higher weighting seeks to reflect their role in preventing food safety failures.
For food plants, the message is quite concrete: there are areas that can no longer be reviewed as just another requirement on a checklist. Among the core clauses identified for food manufacturing are:
- Management commitment and system responsibility.
- Food safety planning.
- Approved supplier program.
- Cleaning, sanitation, and foreign material control.
- Environmental monitoring.
- Allergen management.
- Product identification and traceability.
- Corrective and preventive actions.
Several of these topics were already part of food safety systems, so the change does not mean companies need to start from scratch.
The difference lies in the weight they carry within the assessment and in the need to demonstrate that these controls are implemented consistently. SQFI itself states that preparation for Edition 10 should focus on how risks are identified, reduced, and managed in operations.
From the perspective presented by Rondero during the conference, this also helps explain why the update focuses on what happens after a procedure has been written.
A cleaning policy, a supplier program, or a food safety plan may exist formally, but the audit also seeks evidence of their application and that deviations receive an appropriate response.
Culture, Changes, and Monitoring: Food Safety Is at Stake in Operations
Although it may not seem so at first glance, the three topics are related. A food safety culture that is not reflected in daily decisions can lose strength when personnel changes; an apparently minor change can alter the conditions of a process; and an environmental monitoring program can generate data without adding much value if it is not built around the facility’s actual risks.
For the Global Standards expert, one of the challenges of SQF Edition 10 is precisely bringing these elements into practice. Food safety culture cannot be limited to training or an internal campaign: it must have objectives, resources, time, feedback mechanisms, and records that allow its progress to be evaluated.
It must also reach senior management, with information that helps measure what is occurring in the organization.
The code itself establishes a culture assessment plan that includes communication, training, feedback, and measurement of food safety-related activities.
Change management follows the same logic. The update establishes clearer expectations for evaluating modifications to equipment, processes, personnel, suppliers, or formulations before they are implemented.
Eduardo Rondero illustrated the risk with a situation as routine as moving a machine during maintenance work: if the process configuration changes, the food safety risk may also change. Therefore, the change must be planned, documented, and assessed for its potential impact on food safety before it is carried out.
Source: www.inocuidadhoy.com
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