The certifications brands will ask you for
Which schemes open which doors, what they cost you in practice, and why the expiry date matters as much as the certificate.
Certification is a gate rather than a differentiator. Holding SQF or BRCGS rarely wins you work on its own; not holding one removes you from consideration by most national retailers before anyone has looked at your capability.
Which one depends on where your brands sell. In North America the question is usually SQF. In UK and European retail it is usually BRCGS, which is graded — and the grade is visible, which makes it unusually comparable between sites. FSSC 22000 is recognised alongside both.
The part sites underestimate is maintenance. Certification is not a project that finishes; it is a standard you are held to continuously, with unannounced audits in some schemes. Budget the ongoing cost of holding it, not just the cost of getting it.
What to actually do
- Pick the scheme your brands’ buyers ask forThey are broadly equivalent in weight. The one that matters is the one the retailer names.
- Treat the expiry date as commercial informationA certificate lapsing in three months is a fact about your brands’ businesses, not just yours. They should hear it from you first.
- Keep the evidence where you can produce itMost audit stress is not the practice, it is finding the record of the practice.
- Know what the grade means to a buyerIn graded schemes the buyer sees it. It is worth understanding how yours reads to them.
- Show it before you are askedA brand comparing three sites will shortlist on what they can verify without an email.
Certifications in NextBatch carry their expiry dates and warn you sixty days out, and brands considering you can see them as facts rather than claims.