In 1998, in a response to significant industry need the British Retail Consortium, or BRC, introduced its first BRC Food Technical Standard to evaluate the food brands that retailers put onto their shelves. A little more than 10 years later, in 2009, BRC and RILA, or the Retail Industry Leaders Association, collaborated on a new standard, called the Global Standard for Consumer Products North America. What they developed was a series of process safety management standards which manufacturers, food handlers, and retailers would follow to ensure food was being handled properly. These events represented significant steps toward bringing down the incidence of food borne illnesses like E. coli, which can incubate for one to 10 days.
These process safety management standards developed by BRC and other certifying agencies around the globe have paved newer paths toward handling food better and of eating safe foods. Through specific training in ISO 14000, a set of environmental process safety management standards designed to aid organizations in minimizing how what they do affects the natural environment through following stricter standards, and other certifications like ISO 50001, which helps businesses broaden the energy consuming use of their assets, companies see a real difference in their quality. There are other food safety certification standards that tie very closely with the process safety management mentioned earlier, including Haccp certification training, CMMI certification, Iso 9000 training and ISO 9001 training, and all aim toward bringing better quality foods that are more safely handled to market.