Do You Have The Necessary Tools To Complete Your SQF Internal Audit? (Part Three Of Three)

By Lance Schultz, Quality Programs Facilitator, JD Smith & Sons Ltd.

In the second part of the series, I described how to define food safety objectives and use them to drive analysis of key performance indicators that provide senior management with a report on how operations are achieving the company’s strategic goals. In the third, and final, part of the series, I will discuss the structure of the internal audit, how to audit standard operating procedures, and training methods that can be used to evaluate how these strategic goals can be reached.

The SQF internal audit must include an examination of all documents and it must verify that documents are being followed with an in-depth inspection of the plant floor. The verification schedule is the master document of the food safety management system (FSMS) and includes instructions on how to evaluate every defined food safety objective. You must monitor the plant floor according to objective evidence used to score the audit. Objective evidence should indicate adherence to the FSMS or deviations that must be analyzed with the corrective action process.