FSSC 22000 / ISO 22000

FSSC 22000 · built on ISO 22000

The accredited food-safety certification applied to the factories that make dog food, sitting inside the formal accreditation chain.

01 What It Is

FSSC 22000 is a food-safety management certification scheme for food and feed manufacturers, the pet-food factory included. It is built on the international standard ISO 22000, with sector-specific prerequisite requirements for animal-feed and pet-food production added on top. It is benchmarked by the Global Food Safety Initiative, the body that recognises credible food-safety schemes.

02 What It Covers

The scheme governs how a manufacturing site controls hazards from raw material to finished product: hygiene, contamination control, traceability and the management systems behind them. For pet food it draws on the prerequisite programme for animal-feed production, so a certified plant has shown it manages the specific risks of making food that animals will eat.

03 How It Is Checked

This is where FSSC 22000 differs from a guideline. Sites are audited by independent certification bodies, and those bodies are themselves accredited by national accreditation authorities to a recognised norm. That places the certification inside the full accreditation chain: the manufacturer is checked by a certifier, and the certifier is checked by an accreditation body, so the certificate is not self-awarded.

04 Why It Matters

Nutrition decides whether a dog food is adequate; manufacturing safety decides whether it is contaminated. FSSC 22000 is about the second. A certified plant has had its hazard controls independently audited under accredited oversight, which is the strongest assurance a buyer has that what is in the bag was made safely, rather than simply formulated correctly.

Primary sources

FSSC 22000 schemefssc.com
ISO 22000:2018 Food safety management systemsiso.org