| Summary: | The Swedish Food Safety Authority is working to develop a new model for risk classification to classify food companies. An objective of the new risk classification model is to enable food companies to obtain reduced control time through third-party certifications. The purpose of this study was to map out the most common standards in the food industry and to evaluate how relevant they are for food safety legislation. An investigation was made of the content in four selected standards to assess how relevant they were for the food legislation. Surveys were designed to study how common the standards were. One survey was sent to municipalities in northern and southern regions in Sweden. Another survey was sent to companies and trade associations. There are significantly more municipalities that have heard about the selected standards than municipalities that have not. All trade associations stated that they knew one or more of the standards. The review of the standards reveals that the standards are relevant for compliance with food legislation. The standards cover the food legislation, such as product traceability, HACCP, and allergens. Trade associations and companies were more convinced about a decreased need for control through certifications in comparison with control authorities. In conclusion, a future national classification model should allow control authorities to determine when it is appropriate to reduce the need for control through third-party certification. Certification against the selected standards can be used to reduce control time, but a study needs to be done on how to use them.
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