CHAIN OF CUSTODY: CONSUMER-FACING ORGANISATION

The MSC Chain of Custody Standard has three versions that cover the full supply chain from the certified fishery or farm to the final sale. The MSC Chain of Custody Consumer-Facing Organisation Standard applies to any organisation that serves or sells seafood directly to the final consumer. Consumer-facing organisations such as retail or food service can be single site or have multiple sites, a single CoC certificate is issued for all sites under the organisation’s management system that handles or trades certified products.

If your company operates out of more than one site and intends to have multiple sites under the same certificate, we will visit the central office, all operation sites that are processing and/or packing, and a sample of warehouse and consumer-facing sites.

A Chain of Custody audit will determine whether the operation can demonstrate conformity with the Standard’s five core principles:

PRINCIPLE 1: Certified products are purchased from certified suppliers
PRINCIPLE 2: Certified products are identifiable
PRINCIPLE 3: Certified products are segregated
PRINCIPLE 4: Certified products are traceable and volumes are recorded
PRINCIPLE 5: The organisation’s management system addresses the requirements of this Standard

Following formalisation of contracts, generally prospective certificate holders require a few weeks to review the Standard and prepare using the pre-audit checklist. Once the client is considered ready, an audit date is booked and an audit plan is sent. Presuming there are no non-conformities to address, there is a 30-day window to make a final certification decision and 10 days following to issue the certificate. Details around timeframes and requirements in the event of non-conformities are in Section 9 of the MSC CoC Certification Requirements.

A Chain of Custody certificate is valid for three years. Following successful certification, certified organisations are required to undertake annual surveillance audits to demonstrate continued compliance with the CoC Default Standard.

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