Australia's top food retail companies will be streamlining their quality assurance procedures by the end of this year, in a Horticulture Innovation Australia (HIA) backed initiatve that seeks to reduce costs for suppliers.

In a release, HIA said the new scheme brings together quality assurance requirements for fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts under the one umbrella as ALDI, Coles, Costco, Metcash (IGA) and Woolworths under the same umbrella.

"Currently, major supermarkets each have their own specific food safety requirements, which can result in time and cost inefficiencies when dealing with multiple retailers," HIA said.

"This more efficient auditing process will lower the cost of doing business for the industry, which is estimated to save growers, producers and the extended supply chain around (AUD)$40 million per year combined.

The agreement means retailers will accept one of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) ‘benchmark standards’ listed below, as chosen by the producer or supplier, and comply with 60 food safety elements; a figure that is down by 200 across all retailers.

GFSI standards approved

• BRC Global Standard for Food Safety – Issue 6
• A.P. Integrated Farm Assurance Scheme Version 5
• SQF Code 7th Edition Level 2
• Freshcare Food Safety and Quality Code of Practice (Freshcare), provisionally, pending benchmarking by GFSI which is expected to be achieved by late 2017.

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