IFS Progress Logistics – A standard for a vital link in the supply chain

IFS Progress Logistics is a standard recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) for auditing logistics providers in the food supply chain.

Manufacturers, brokers, retailers, and consumers are united by a desire for transparency along the entire food supply chain. Food safety is rightly given very high priority in industry and society. However, there are also risks associated with transporting, handling, storing and distributing food and non-food products, whether as final products for consumers as well as animal feed, ingredients or raw materials.

Manufacturers, brokers, wholesalers, and retailers therefore increasingly trust logistics service providers who can demonstrate that they have done everything possible to comply with food safety and quality requirements (due diligence concept).

This can be demonstrated using IFS Progress Logistics, an established standard and joint objective by retail and industry to create transparency and trust across the entire supply chain.

The IFS Progress Logistics standard was developed by German, French and Italian retailers aiming to close the gap between production and retailing and to make the whole supply chain transparent and comparable. Certification to the IFS Progress Logistics standard demonstrates your company’s capability to manage food safety related risks. It will help your organization to fulfill its legal obligations and to protect the consumer. Combined with the IFS Broker standard, it also covers retail and wholesale activities. We are your competent partner in obtaining certification according to IFS Progress Logistics. As an accredited and approved certification body, we guide you through the certification process for your processes and systems.

International Featured Standards (IFS) is a set of standards for food and non-food products, animal feed and services, designed to ensure that products and services meet the legal requirements for supply chains as well as the specifications as agreed upon with customers. IFS Progress Logistics is also applicable for packed and specific loose food products when no processing or primary packaging activity is involved.

The IFS Progress Logistics standard includes all logistical activities such as loading, unloading, transportation, storage, handling, and onward distribution. The main types of services are:

• transport of food and non-food items
• storage of food and non-food items

In addition to storage, the following logistics processing services can be conducted:

• Freezing and thawing
• Ripening of fruits and vegetables
• Simple sorting of fruits and vegetables according to quality aspects
• Packing of prepacked products
• Labelling, resp. applying pre-existing labels onto packaged products intended for the end consumer

It applies to food and non-food products, animal feed as well as to the transport via truck, train, ship, plane or any other transportation type, temperature controlled or ambient stable.

IFS meets the stringent requirements of, and is recognized by, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). GFSI does not define its own standards but does recognize specific international standards on food safety, associated processes and management systems. In addition to the IFS, FSSC 22000 and BRCGS Global Standards are also GFSI-recognized. Manufacturers, retailers, brokers and other actors in the food sector around the world trust the benchmark requirements of GFSI. Consequently, IFS Progress Logistics certification is a global ticket to trade in every sector of the world's food market.

Create transparency, safety, and trust in an end-to-end, globalized food supply chain. We support you by auditing and certifying your processes and management systems.

IFS Progress Logistics version 3 comes with fewer requirements, an optimized protocol, as well as an enhanced structure and scoring system. It also includes extensions and clarifications within the scopes. These new features make it much easier to work with this renowned standard and to implement its requirements.

*Exceptions:

• Unannounced audits:
  Version 3 applies for audit windows starting on or after June 1, 2024.
• Multi-location audits:
  Sites and head office must be audited according to the same version. After December1, 2024, version 3 applies to all audits performed at the head office.
• Follow-up audits:
  When the corresponding main audit took place according to version 2.3 before December 1, 2024, version 2.3 also applies for the follow-up audit.
• Extension audits:
  When the connected main audit took place according to version 2.3 before December 1, 2024, version 2.3 also applies for the extension audit.

The general admission of these exceptions ends on November 30, 2025.

We are a partner who knows every relevant food safety standard worldwide and can professionally and efficiently certify your business. Your customer relations will then be secure for the long term. Benefit from our more than two decades of experience in the food sector and from top experts who know your industry. To enable you to fully focus on your core business, we continuously monitor the development of new standards for the global food sector.

We support you as a competent and reliable partner, starting with the question which standard is best suited to your company and your business model, through to preparation for the audit required for certification.

An additional benefit for you is entry in our Certipedia database that documents your transparency and high standards of safety and quality. This represents one further building block for gaining the trust of customers and business partners.

One partner for all certifications essential for success

As a globally active and experienced testing and certification organization, we are familiar with many other standards beyond food safety that play a role in the food industry. This gives you important added value. These standards include common audits according to ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 50001 as well as information security (ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 20000), supply chain and CSR audits such as SMETA and SA 8000 and the palm oil certification RSPO. We are your partner for efficient certification also in areas such as environmental protection, occupational health and safety, energy management, and more.

In other words, we are a real one-stop shop for you to meet competent experts who possess profound knowledge of the industry and who speak your language.

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.