Every gap between your system and your standard, graded on audit consequence and sequenced into a corrective action roadmap you can resource.
A food safety gap assessment compares your current food safety system against the standard you need to meet, and returns every difference as a specific finding with a severity and an owner. It is normally the first step before certification, because it establishes the real size of the project before you commit to an audit date. The output is a gap register and a sequenced corrective action roadmap.
The value sits in the sequencing. A gap register on its own is a list. Many gaps cannot be closed until others are, so the roadmap orders the work and makes the timeline honest. That is what lets you decide whether an audit date is realistic before you book it.
A gap assessment tells you what stands between your system and your standard, how serious each item is, and what order to fix them in. Delivered remotely or on site, in any language, quoted on scope.
Businesses ask for one of these when they need another. This is the difference.
| Service | What it measures | When it fits | Output | Required by the standard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gap assessment | Measures your system against a standard you do not yet meet. | Before certification, or after drifting away from one. | Gap register with severity and a corrective action roadmap. | No, it is a planning exercise. |
| Internal audit | Checks whether the system you already have is being followed. | Once the system is running, on a schedule the standard requires. | Audit report with graded findings and a nonconformity register. | Yes, every major standard has an internal audit clause. |
| Mock certification audit | Rehearses the certification audit at the same protocol and duration. | Weeks before a certification audit, once the system is complete. | Report in certification body format with a readiness verdict. | No, it is preparation. |
Every clause of the standard in scope, assessed against evidence and not against assertion. These are the eight areas the findings group under.
Policy, objectives, resourcing, organisational structure, management review, and the food safety culture requirements now embedded in the major schemes.
Scope, team, product descriptions, flow diagrams, hazard analysis quality, CCP determination, critical limits and their validation.
Hygienic design, zoning, cleaning, pest control, personal hygiene, maintenance, calibration, utilities and waste.
Document control, version management, record completeness, retention and retrievability.
Approval procedure, supplier files, risk classification, specification control and incoming material verification.
Lot coding, trace capability in both directions, mass balance, withdrawal and recall procedure, complaint handling.
Specifications, labelling and claims, allergen management, foreign body control, and product release.
Internal audit, corrective action, validation evidence, trend analysis and continual improvement.
These eight appear in most of the assessments we carry out across every standard, and most of them are cheaper to close than businesses expect.
Significance decisions stated as conclusions with no likelihood and severity reasoning behind them. This is one of the most frequent finding in a gap assessment and the easiest to fix once identified.
Limits taken from guidance documents, with nothing demonstrating they work on your equipment with your product. Businesses routinely have good verification records and no validation at all.
Audits carried out by the person who wrote the procedure, or covering only part of the standard within the cycle. Both fail the clause as written.
A written procedure with supplier files that do not meet it. Expired certificates and scope mismatches sit in most supplier bases that have never been checked line by line.
Programmes that are documented and performed with nothing proving they were performed. An unverified programme is treated as an absent one.
A procedure describing how traceability would work, with no exercise showing that it does. Mass balance is where these usually break.
Standards specify what a management review has to consider. A meeting with minutes and none of the required inputs does not satisfy the clause.
Food safety culture now carries explicit requirements across the major schemes, including measurement and an improvement plan. A noticeboard is not evidence.
Issued in a format you can work from directly and hand to the people responsible for each item.
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Clause reference | The exact clause of the standard the finding fails, so it is traceable. |
| Finding | What was observed, in enough detail to act on without further explanation. |
| Evidence | What the finding is based on, whether a document, a record or an observation. |
| Severity | Graded on audit consequence, so effort goes where the risk to certification is. |
| Action required | What closing the gap involves, specified in full. |
| Owner | The function responsible, so the register can be issued and worked from directly. |
| Sequence | Where the item sits in the roadmap, since many gaps depend on others closing first. |
| Estimated effort | A realistic indication of the work, so the plan can be resourced. |
Food manufacturers, processors, packers, storage and distribution operations and catering businesses working towards certification or maintaining it. It suits any operation where someone needs an honest answer about where the system genuinely stands.
You are certifying to a GFSI standard for the first time.
A customer has made certification a condition of continued supply.
You have inherited a system and cannot tell whether it holds up.
You are moving to a new standard or a new issue of your current one.
You have been certified for years and suspect the system has drifted.
You need to budget and resource the certification project properly.
A new site or line has been added and never assessed against the standard.
You want to know whether an audit date is realistic before you book it.
You confirm the standard, the sites in scope and the products covered. Existing documentation is requested at this point.
The documented system is reviewed clause by clause before the operation is examined, so site time addresses what paperwork cannot answer.
The operation is assessed against the standard, remotely by interview and evidence, or on site where the depth requires it.
Every gap is recorded with its clause reference, the evidence and a severity grade reflecting audit consequence.
Gaps are sequenced into a corrective action plan with realistic timings and a named owner for each item.
Findings are walked through with your team, so the plan is understood and worked from.
The assessment identifies and prioritises gaps. Writing the documentation, building the HACCP plan and implementing the corrective actions are separate pieces of work.
This is deliberate. Many businesses close a good proportion of their gaps internally once they know precisely what those gaps are, and commission help only for the items that need specialist input.
The assessment is not a certification audit and produces no certificate.
Every assessment is quoted against your own scope. A single site with a mature system and a three site operation with almost nothing documented are very different pieces of work. These factors set the price.
These are the primary sources this work is built on. Where a market you sell into has its own requirement, that takes precedence and we assess against it.
A gap assessment compares your current food safety system against the standard you need to meet and returns every difference as a specific finding, with the clause it fails, the evidence behind it, a severity and the action required. It is a planning exercise carried out before certification or before moving to a new standard, and it tells you the real size of the project before you commit to an audit date.
A gap assessment measures your system against a standard you do not yet meet, and is used to plan the work needed to get there. An internal audit checks whether the system you already have is being followed, and satisfies a clause every major standard requires. Businesses approaching certification usually need the gap assessment first, then internal audits once the system is running.
For a single site with a reasonably mature system, the assessment itself typically runs one to three days with the report following. Multi site operations, complex processes or systems with very little existing documentation take longer. The largest variable is documentation volume, because a system with nothing written down takes longer to assess than one that is simply incomplete.
BRCGS, IFS Food, FSSC 22000, ISO 22000 and SQF for certification, FSMA and its preventive controls requirements, and the food hygiene legislation of the markets you operate in. Customer specific standards and retailer codes of practice are also covered, provided you can share the requirement document.
Yes, for the documented system, which is where most gaps sit. Document review, hazard analysis assessment, record sampling and interviews all work remotely. What remote assessment cannot verify is hygienic design, zoning, flows and actual practice on the floor, so operations with physical or infrastructure concerns get more from an on site assessment.
It tells you which findings would be raised and how serious each would be. It is a planning document and not a prediction of a certification outcome, because that depends on the auditor, the day and how your team responds in the moment. For a genuine rehearsal of the audit itself, a mock certification audit is the right service.
Early enough that the roadmap is achievable. Businesses starting from very little documentation usually need several months before an audit date is worth booking. Businesses with a mature system moving to a new standard need considerably less. Booking the audit first and assessing afterwards is the sequence that causes problems.
A gap register listing every finding with its clause reference, the evidence, a severity grade, the action required and the responsible function. Alongside it, a corrective action roadmap sequencing the work with realistic timings, since many gaps cannot be closed until others are.
Yes, as separate work. Documentation development, HACCP plan development and corrective action support are all available. Many businesses close a large share of their gaps in house once the register makes the requirements concrete, and commission help only for the items needing specialist input.
Frequently, yes. Systems drift between audits, particularly after a change of personnel, a new product line or a site change. A gap assessment carried out mid cycle finds the drift while there is time to correct it, and it costs considerably less than a downgrade.
On audit consequence, not on how much work the fix involves. A gap that would attract a major nonconformity is graded above one that would attract a minor, even where the minor takes longer to close. This keeps effort pointed at what threatens certification.
Yes. Multi site assessments are scoped as one project with a schedule across the sites, which is normally more efficient than commissioning each separately because the preparation is shared. Practice diverges between sites more than most businesses expect, so a comparison across them is often the most useful part of the output.
Confi Food assigns work by subject. HACCP, labelling, certification standards, regulatory compliance, supplier assurance and monitoring are separate disciplines, and each piece goes to someone who works in that area. Every deliverable is reviewed internally by a second specialist before it reaches you.
Our technical positions are built from primary sources, meaning the legislation, the competent authority, Codex Alimentarius, the certification scheme owner or the relevant standards body. We set out how that works in our technical review and editorial policy, and what happens at each stage of an engagement in how Confi Food works.
An independent internal audit carried out to the requirements of your standard, satisfying the internal audit clause with someone genuinely independent of the work.
Read about Internal Food Safety Audit →An independent technical review of your existing HACCP plan, checking that the hazard analysis holds and that the CCPs are genuinely the right ones.
Read about HACCP Plan Review →Building the full documented system your standard requires, from policy through to record templates.
Read about Food Safety Documentation Development →Certificated course covering building a food safety management system to a GFSI standard.
View Certified FSMS Implementation Manager →Expert HACCP consulting worldwide. HACCP plan development, hazard analysis, CCP determination, validation, internal audits and training for food businesses of all sizes.
See HACCP Consulting →Expert ISO 22000 consulting worldwide. Gap assessments, FSMS design, internal audits, mock certification audits and ongoing compliance support for food businesses of...
See ISO 22000 Consulting →Expert BRCGS Food Safety consulting worldwide. Gap assessments, Issue 9 certification prep, mock audits, Grade AA support and ongoing compliance for food...
See BRCGS Food Safety Consulting →Tell us the standard, the sites and the timeline, and receive a written quote covering the scope, the deliverable and the price.