IFS Food Certification: Steps, Scoring and the Audit, Explained

IFS Food is, alongside BRCGS and FSSC 22000, one of the three major food-safety standards recognised by GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative). It is the one most demanded by continental European retailers: for a manufacturer supplying French or German chains, particularly for private label, it is usually IFS that the buyer’s specification names. Here is how to achieve it, step by step — and above all how its scoring system works, the true hallmark of this standard.

IFS Food in a nutshell

IFS Food is a private audit standard for food processing and packing sites, born out of German and French retail. The current version is version 8, applicable to audits since 2024. The certificate is not issued by IFS itself but by an accredited certification body, approved for the standard, which sends auditors qualified for your product categories.

The standard covers governance and senior-management commitment, the quality and food-safety management system (HACCP first and foremost), resource management, manufacturing processes, production-environment measures, food defense, food-fraud prevention and food-safety culture.

Who is it for? Sites that process or pack food: manufacturers, co-packers, private-label producers. A business doing pure trading or logistics falls under other members of the IFS family. And it never replaces regulatory obligations: the EU hygiene package, HACCP and, where applicable, the French agrément sanitaire (sanitary approval) remain the legal foundation the standard builds on.

IFS scoring: understand the marking before you start

This is what most distinguishes IFS Food from a classic ISO certification: every requirement is scored, and the overall result is expressed as a percentage.

Score	Meaning
A	Full compliance
B	Minor deviation from the requirement
C	Only part of the requirement implemented
D	Requirement not implemented

Two thresholds shape the outcome: below the required score, no certificate is issued; with a high score, the site is certified at “Higher Level”, a signal buyers appreciate. In between, the site is certified at the base level — contractually sufficient in most cases, though some retailers explicitly ask for Higher Level.

Then come the KO (knock-out) requirements: around ten points deemed fundamental — senior-management responsibility, the CCP monitoring system, personnel hygiene, traceability, corrective actions… A downgraded KO mechanically slashes the score and fails the audit. It reflects a simple principle: on these topics, no compensation is accepted.

This scoring logic is no gimmick: research on third-party certification in the food chain — notably the study by Albersmeier, Schulze, Jahn and Spiller published in 2009 in Food Control (“The reliability of third-party certification in the food chain: From checklists to risk-oriented auditing”) — shows that a certification system’s reliability depends precisely on its ability to discriminate between sites and steer the audit towards real risks rather than ticking checklists (see the study). Scoring and KOs are IFS’s answer to that demand.

The steps to certification

1. Get the standard and run the gap analysis. The version 8 text is available from IFS. Assess your site against it requirement by requirement: documentation, HACCP, infrastructure, shop-floor practices. Rank the gaps by criticality, with immediate attention to the KO requirements.

2. Bring the site up to standard. The heaviest workstreams are usually infrastructure (zoning, flows, foreign-body control) and the robustness of the HACCP study. Do not overlook the areas often missing from purely regulation-driven systems: food defense, the food-fraud mitigation plan, the food-safety culture plan.

3. Choose the certification body. Compare several accredited bodies: proposed audit days, daily rate, ancillary fees, availability of auditors qualified for your product categories. Auditor scheduling is a genuine constraint — plan ahead.

4. Rehearse under real conditions. A mock audit, internal or supported, reveals what routine no longer sees: incomplete records, instructions unknown to operators, a traceability test that fails to close within the allotted time.

5. Undergo the initial audit. The auditor splits time between documentation and production areas, with interviews at every level. Each requirement receives its score; findings are formalised.

6. Close out the findings. You submit corrections and action plans within the set deadlines, evidence attached. The certification body then finalises the score, takes the certification decision and issues the certificate with its rating.

After the certificate: an annual, sometimes unannounced, cycle

The IFS Food certificate is renewed through a full audit, generally every year. Two rules must be built in from day one:

• At least one audit in three is unannounced: the auditor arrives with no scheduled date. Sites audited unannounced can display the “Star Status”, an extra trust signal for buyers. We cover this regime in our article on unannounced IFS and BRCGS audits.
• The score is replayed at every audit. A Higher Level site can drop back to base level; an insufficient score loses the certificate. The system therefore has to live all year round: daily records, regular reviews, ongoing staff training.

Budget: there is no single public price. Count the audit days at the body’s rate, the scheme-related fees, and above all the upgrade cost, which varies widely with your starting point — we break these items down in our article on the price of IFS, BRCGS and FSSC 22000 certification.

Is IFS Food the right choice for your site?

If your customers are continental European retailers, the answer is usually yes. But GFSI mutual recognition means a BRCGS or FSSC 22000 certificate may satisfy the same requirements: before deciding, re-read your customers’ specifications and compare the three standards — that is the purpose of our comparison IFS, BRCGS or FSSC 22000: which scheme to choose?

Take action

IFS Food is prepared methodically: an honest gap analysis, workstreams prioritised by the KOs, a system that lives all year. Our full guide to the GFSI schemes (IFS Food, BRCGS, FSSC 22000) gathers status, steps and frequent questions — plus a free ebook to structure your project end to end.