The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India on 2nd May 2022, has notified the Standard Operating Procedure for central licensing authority to review third party audit (TPA) reports. The food businesses falling under high risk categories such as meat processing, fish and fish processing, prepared food, bakery etc are mandated to get their businesses timely audited by FSSAI recognised 3rd Party agencies on their own. Food businesses which are not subject to mandatory auditing can also voluntarily opt for auditing of their businesses.
The Central Licensing authority (CLA) shall review the report in the following manner.
If the audit is not done for previous year, then an improvement notice may be issued by the CLA and if the TPA is pending only for the current year then a reminder may be sent to the FBO to complete the Audit at the earliest (timeline 1st reminder in October and 2nd reminder in January)
In case the TPA is not completed by 31st March and no reason for delay is provided by the FBO then improvement notice may be issued to the FBO.
In case TPA has been completed and the report is available in the FoSCoS dashboard, the CLA has review the following information in the audit report.
- Date of audit
- major and minor non conformities observed
- whether the major non conformities have been reported by the auditor to FSSAI or CLA, if not then TPAA to intimate the reason for the same.
- Whether correct inspection checklist has been used as per kind of business etc.
The CLAs must consider any other guidelines/order/notification issued by FSSAI in reference with third party audits or similar schemes while reviewing the third party audit report or status of third party audit of the FBO.
