About ISO 22000
ISO 22000 is a safety management system standard. It sets food safety requirements that apply to all organizations in the food chain. These requirements are listed in 5 separate sections of the standard document.
As an organization is part of the food chain, ISO 22000 requires that you establish a food safety management system, usually called FSMS, to ensure that food products do not cause adverse human health effects.
You can become certified to ISO 22000 by a registrar once you have implemented a compliant FSMS. When you successfully pass a registrar audit to the requirements of ISO 22000, it will issue an official certificate that states that your FSMS meets the ISO 22000 food safety requirements. You can be in compliance without being formally certified by an accredited registrar. You can provide training to your staff on ISO 22000, implement it, self assess your FSMS and simply declare to your customer base that your FSMS complies with ISO 22000. Of course, your customers and business partners are more likely to believe that you have an effective FSMS if a 3rd party auditor says so.
