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News
BRC Consumer (Non-food) Products Standard
Date::23-03-2004
With increased obligation in respect to the EU General Product Safety Directive, the BRC have now published a technical standard for consumer (non-food) products.
In addition to encompassing the fundamental principles of the retailers' own standards, the new standard promotes product safety, legality and quality, but does not address requirements in relation to staff health and safety, environmental or ethical issues. A free overview can be supplied as a PDF file on request, and the full document can be purchased from The Stationery Office.
Following the same route as their Food Packaging Standard, this will now undergo a UKAS pilot to gain accreditation and international status, after which compliance will be demonstrated by third-party certification from UKAS approved Certification Bodies.
QA International will be part of this initial pilot and we (IHC) have once again been appointed as their scheme administrators.
We are now inviting companies who manufacture and supply consumer products to participate with ourselves on this pilot enabling them to become amongst the first certificate holders in the country.
Although the eventual costs will be based on those published for the BRC Packaging Standard, companies taking part in the pilot will not be charged a registration fee and costs for audit visit(s) will be significantly reduced. Further details will be available on request.
It is envisaged that the audit programme will be started around June 2004 and conclude a few months later, with UKAS accreditation of Certification Bodies being announced in January 2005. If you would like your company to be involved with the pilot, please get in touch as soon as possible as we will be limiting the number of participants.
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