23/06/2025
Not all FSSC certificates are GFSI-recognized
While working on a certification research project with my colleague Praise Fasoyiro, I came across something interesting on the FSSC public register that caught my eyes that I would like to share.
I discovered that some organizations were FSSC 22000 certified, yet their certificates were marked “not GFSI-recognized.”
This piece of information raised a big question for me:
How can a certificate from a GFSI-recognized scheme not be GFSI-recognized?
After much digging, here’s what I found out:
🎯 If an organization undergoes a full remote audit due to a serious event (like insecurity), their certificate is not GFSI-recognized even though it’s recognized by FSSC, this is because GFSI does not recognize full remote audits.
🎯 If the organization’s food category falls under Category E or Category F, it’s not GFSI-recognized either.
This is because GFSI does not allow multisite certification for these categories, whilst the FSSC scheme makes allowance for it.
Bottom line is while FSSC 22000 is GFSI-benchmarked, not every FSSC 22000 certificates are automatically GFSI-recognize and knowing this is critical for businesses depending on certification for exports, partnerships, or market access.
This was an eye-opener for me and I thought it was worth sharing.
If you share same sentiment, give this post a like, drop a comment, or repost it so others can learn too.
Thinking about getting certified? Let’s talk.
PS: You will find the link to the research work in the comment.
With love,
❤️
ZoZo
