BRC Consumer Product Certification

Developed by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the BRC Global Standards outline requirements imposed by British retailers for a range of products – with the aim of ensuring safety, legality, and quality of products.

Meeting those standards is mission critical for your business, since the majority of UK – as well as many European and global – retailers and brand owners only consider doing business with suppliers who have gained certification of the appropriate BRC Global Standard.

TÜV Rheinland can help ensure you meet those standards, greatly increasing your market and chances for success.

With BRC consumer product certification from TÜV Rheinland, you can be sure that you:

• Meet the requirements of your European trading partners
• Satisfy the legal requirement to demonstrate “due diligence,” as required by the European General Safety Directive 2001/95/EC
• Ensure consistency of production for sector-specific product requirements, such as the Low-Voltage Directive and Toy Safety Directive
• Meet GMP (good manufacturing practice) requirements when these are required for the product type
• Safeguard your position in the European retail market
• Build confidence with current and potential customers
• Benefit from our exclusive, one-stop service – product testing, supply chain management, auditing, and training – delivered by highly qualified and experienced auditors with a presence in many countries
• Gain a lead against the competition with a neutral audit seal
• Reduce risk of company liability with documented safety standards
• Benefit from fast audit times and our long-standing experience

TÜV Rheinland’s BRC consumer product certification services comprise:

• Verifying the risk-level classifications of your products
• Doing a preliminary audit and evaluating whether your company is ready for certification
• Performing the certification audit

The procedure for TÜV Rheinland’s BRC consumer product certification is as follows.

1. Classification of product according to risk level

The manufacturer has to determine the product group for the manufactured products using the BRC decision tree. The classification is verified by the certification body.

• Group 1: Products with specific legal and hygiene requirements and/or the potential to cause serious injury or death if they fail during normal use.
• Group 2: Products with specific legal requirements and/or the potential to cause serious injury or death if they fail during normal use.
• Group 3: Products with some product-specific legal requirements and which may cause slight injury if they fail during normal use.
• Group 4: Very low-risk products that have no product-specific legal requirements.

2. Implementation of Standard Requirements

The manufacturer has to study and implement those requirements of the standard that are applicable to the determined product group. Group 1 defines the most comprehensive and stringent requirements.

3. Preliminary Audit (optional)

The auditors conduct a preliminary audit to determine any weaknesses in documentation and implementation of the BRC standard.

4. Evaluation of Readiness of Certification

The manufacturer receives a company information questionnaire in which they can demonstrate the readiness of the organization for certification. The auditor evaluates the company information questionnaire. Inconsistencies are discussed and clarified with the manufacturer.

5. Certification Audit

In an on-site audit at the manufacturer’s site, our auditors verify how effectively the requirements of the standard have been implemented. The manufacturer will receive an audit report in the format specified by BRC. Non-conformities identified during the audit will be documented and have to be addressed by the manufacturer within 90 days. If this timeframe cannot be kept, another full audit is necessary.

6. Issue of Certificate

Once all criteria have been met, manufacturers receive their certificate, demonstrating conformity to the BRC Global Standard Consumer Products. Depending on the product group, the certificate is valid for 1, 2, or 3 years.

7. Certification Renewal

To renew the certificate, the audit is repeated every 1, 2, or 3 years after the original audit.

The Consumer Products Standard applies to almost all nonfood consumer goods, such as toys, textiles, electrical items, kitchenware, and DIY (do-it-yourself) items. A few products, however, are excluded from the scope:

• Motor vehicles
• Bulk fuel
• Services (for example, insurance, banking)
• Pharmaceuticals dispensed by doctors
• Vitamins and minerals
• Plants and flowers
• Live animals/pets
• Food contact packaging

The standard was written to allow proper assessment of the factory with regard to the product’s level of potential to cause harm to the consumer. The products are categorized into four different risk levels (product groups) for which the standard defines different requirements.

The BRC Global Standard Consumer Products defines four different sets of requirements for the different product groups. The number of requirements differs between the product groups, but always covers the following topics:

• Product risk management
• Consumer product management system
• Site environmental standards
• Product control
• Process control
• Personnel

If you are interested in TÜV Rheinland’s BRC consumer product certification services, you may also be interested in our ISO 9001 services .

Our services cover the different standards for the following products:

• Consumer products
• Food
• Packaging products
• Storage and distribution
• Non-genetically modified products

Disclaimer: At TÜV Rheinland, the neutrality, objectivity, independency and impartiality of our activities are of utmost importance. Our assessment and audit activities follow these values in compliance with the applicable accreditation requirements. All the necessary structural, organizational and processual measures are in place in all levels of the organization in order to avoid conflicts of interest (e.g. rigorous separation of consultancy and certification) and to ensure impartiality. We do not offer or provide management system consultancy by an accredited certification body for management systems. Within the TR Group, we ensure a minimum 2-year interval between management system consultancy and certification activity for the same costumer.