IFS Product and Food Defense Guideline vers. 2

IFS has published the complete revision of its "IFS Product and Food Defense Guideline" (version 2) with the integration of cybersecurity risks.

Key points of the new version:

1. Importance of Product and Food Defense : The guideline emphasizes the importance of protecting food and non-food products from intentional contamination, which poses public health risks and can lead to substantial economic losses.

2. Integrate cybersecurity : With the rise of digital technologies in the food industry, integrating robust cybersecurity measures is critical. This includes incident response management (IRM) to minimize disruptions due to cyber attacks and maintain product security.

3. TACCP Methodology : The guideline recommends using the Threat Assessment and Critical Control Points (TACCP) approach to conduct in-depth product and food defense assessments, including reviewing existing measures, characterizing threats and defining levels of risk.

4. Regular evaluations and reviews : It is essential to conduct regular evaluations and reviews of your product defense measures to ensure their effectiveness. This involves identifying critical areas, implementing mitigation measures and continuously monitoring for new threats.

5. Interdisciplinary teams : It is critical to create a team dedicated to product advocacy with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. This team should include members with diverse expertise to effectively manage and improve defense strategies.

6. Senior management commitment : Senior management involvement and commitment are critical to the success of product advocacy initiatives. This includes providing the necessary resources and integrating defense measures into the overall management system.

7. Compliance with global standards : The guideline refers to international standards such as ISO 27001 , ISO 22301 and IEC 62443, ensuring comprehensive protection against various threats and vulnerabilities.
It also presents the different requirements of all related IFS standards.

8. Horizon scanning and training : Continuous horizon scanning for emerging threats and regular training of personnel on product defense and cybersecurity is recommended to keep defense measures up to date and effective. (Source: https://www.ifs-certification.com/ )