One of our suppliers have changed certification body (CB) every year, for the past three years. Since 2016 they've used four different CB.
It's a company based in a non-english speaking country and it's for BRC Food Safety certification.
I've asked the supplier why and while I'm waiting for their reply I'm trying to think of the reason for this.
Is this something I would have done? No, unless a very special circumstance occur, but what are the chances of that happening every year? Especially for four years?
For example; our previous CB notfied us at last minute that they wouldn't send an auditor who spoke our language (only spoke English) so we chose to change CB for that reason.
- Maybe they didn't agree with the auditor, but most CB have more than one auditor so they could send someone else next time.
- The price could also be a reason, but don't you have agreements with CB?
- The present and previous CB are not from the same country as this company. When searching the BRC directory there are approved CB in the same country, why not use one of them? Why go abroad and have to do the audit in a foreign language? This should also have affect on the price, surely?
Is this occuring a lot around the globe? Could you please share your experiences about this?
(They've also changed CB for organic certification but we know the surcomstances for that. It's not the same CB that does both certification audits, never been.)