Beira VACCP Framework (BVF): a quantitative methodology to prevent food fraud
I have spent years working in food safety, and during all that time I kept running into the same frustration: when a company has to comply with a food fraud requirement —under FSSC 22000, BRC, IFS or SQF— there is no clear reference methodology to lean on. HACCP has the Codex Alimentarius. TACCP has PAS 96. VACCP, however, had been left orphan.
After a lot of reading, writing, scrapping and starting over, I decided to close that gap. This week I published the Beira VACCP Framework (BVF) version 1.0, a complete, quantitative and auditable methodological guide to implement VACCP. And, just as importantly, I published it under a Creative Commons license so that any company, consultant, certification body or authority can use it without asking for permission.
This article is the introduction I wish someone had handed me ten years ago: what food fraud is, why it should matter, what problem the BVF solves and how it is structured.