In 1998 British retailers decided to join force and create joint standard hygiene and food safety requirements from all the individual initiatives, and that’s how the British Retail Consortium Technical Standard and Protocol, or the BRC, came into being.

The BRC outlines hygiene and food safety requirements for food-processing and pharmaceutical companies that deliver directly to the retail sector, and is, for example, an express prerequisite of Albert Heijn in the Netherlands.

In addition to the standards for food products, BRC has also introduced standards for packaging of food products in cooperation with the Institute of Packaging (IOP). These are the BRC/IOP standards, which are aimed at hygienic production of packaging materials for the food industry.

As a printer who specialises in packaging materials, St-Luc wants to show that it takes food safety, quality and personal hygiene seriously. Intensive preparations were concluded on 25th March 2009 with a final audit and crowned by the official BRC/IOP certificate on 2nd June 2009

Download the BRC statement

More information can be found at: http://www.brc.org.uk/standards/default.asp