Food and beverage
In this sector the food safety certificate is not a marketing asset, it is a document your operating licence depends on.
SFDA's licensing guide lists a HACCP certificate from an accredited certification body among the documents required for a food manufacturer operating licence. Retailers and exporters then add a GFSI-recognised scheme on top. Two different drivers, two different pieces of work, usually running at the same time.
Two clocks, running at once
A Saudi food manufacturer is being measured by two entirely separate parties for two entirely separate reasons. SFDA is protecting public health and gating your licence, on a one to three year renewal cycle, through the Ghad system and an inspection of your facility. Your customer is protecting their own supply chain and will accept nothing less than whatever scheme their contract names. Neither party cares about the other, the evidence formats are different, and a factory that plans for only one of them discovers the other about six weeks before it matters.
- The licence chain runs through other authorities first, and SFDA is the last gate rather than the first
- The HACCP certificate has to come from an accredited certification body, with records showing the system in use
- A retailer asking for GFSI recognition will not accept ISO 22000 on its own
- Almost every finding we see is a records failure, not a practice failure: the training happened and nobody filed it
- Inspections are unannounced, so the evidence has to live in the building rather than be assembled on request
Where we start
Usually in that order, because the licence is the existential one.
HACCP
The plan, the prerequisite programmes and the records behind the certificate your licence names.
Read moreServiceSFDA licence readiness
The whole dependency chain, mapped for your site and your land authority, with a mock inspection.
Read moreStandardISO 22000
The management system when a customer wants more than the licence requires.
Read moreStandardFSSC 22000
The GFSI-recognised scheme when the contract names one, built on top of ISO 22000.
Read moreServiceDocument control
Traceability, retention and retrieval, which is where inspections are actually lost.
Read moreThe list you are measured against
| Requirement | What it means on site |
|---|---|
| SFDA operating licence | Applied for through Ghad after prior approvals from other authorities. Valid one to three years, renewed against inspection. |
| HACCP certificate from an accredited body | Named in SFDA's licensing guide as a required document. You choose the certification body. |
| Laboratory testing | At a private laboratory approved by SFDA, separate from your own internal lab. |
| Health conditions in the facility | Technical regulations covering the premises and the workers, assessed during inspection rather than from your file. |
| Traceability and recall | One step back and one step forward at minimum, with a recall procedure and a designated area for withdrawn product. |
| Customer scheme requirements | Whatever the contract names. If it says GFSI-recognised, that is FSSC 22000, BRCGS, IFS or SQF, and ISO 22000 alone does not clear it. |
| Storage for third parties | If you rent warehouse space, each lessee needs its own SFDA activity licence and there are area, sub-leasing and notification rules most operators have never read. |
What food manufacturers ask first
Is HACCP really mandatory here?
For an SFDA food manufacturer operating licence, the licensing guide lists a HACCP certificate from an accredited certification body among the required documents. Treat it as a licence condition rather than a commercial choice, which means a lapse is an existence-level risk rather than a lost tender.
Will ISO 22000 or FSSC satisfy that requirement?
Both contain HACCP and go beyond it. We have not seen SFDA confirm that Ghad accepts either in place of the named HACCP certificate. Ask SFDA directly, or hold the HACCP certificate as well.
Our factory is in an industrial city. Does the route change?
The site approval does. Inside MODON, an economic city or a Royal Commission city, that approval comes from the city authority rather than the municipality, and the environmental route can change with it. The rest of the chain is the same.
What does a typical engagement look like?
A new food plant in Dammam 2nd Industrial City with its licence application ahead and a retailer asking for a GFSI-recognised scheme. We map the full licence chain first and schedule the HACCP work so the certificate is ready when the application needs it. The prerequisite programmes are built to the ISO 22002 standard from the start, so the later FSSC 22000 step is a delta rather than a rebuild. The plant ends up holding the mapped licence chain, the HACCP plan, the prerequisite programmes and its own monitoring records.
We passed inspection last year. Why are we failing now?
Usually because the system that passed was carried by two people and one of them left, or because production changed and the flow diagram did not. Almost nothing in food safety fails suddenly. It decays, and the audit is when you find out.
Do you handle the sampling and testing?
No. Testing runs at an SFDA-approved private laboratory. We tell you what needs testing, what the result has to show, and where the report has to sit in the file.
Part of one system
Every division keeps records to the same standard, so the second one you need works the way the first one did.
Start with whichever clock is closer
If the licence is the pressure, start with HACCP and the dependency map. If a customer is the pressure, start by reading their contract clause. They are different projects and doing them in the wrong order delays the application.