The new GLOBALG.A.P. Produce Handling Assurance Standard (PHA) covers pre-process production steps after the point of harvest for crops including cooling, packing, re-packing, handling, and storage of produce for human consumption. The PHA may not be used to certify products significantly transformed from the original whole state or foods that are processed.
The GLOBALG.A.P. Produce Handling Assurance Standard:
- Will be available to all qualified produce packing operations meeting the scope definition in the United States, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean.
- Will be available to produce handling operations worldwide meeting the scope definition that pack and handle produce in an open-shed environment.
- May be used in conjunction with the IFA Fruit and Vegetable Standard audit to reduce audit redundancy and cost, particularly in cases where a grower is packing their own produce and has previously required two separate audits.
- Incorporates USA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements from both the Produce Safety Rule and the Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule, as appropriate.
- Will aid operations in identifying FSMA requirements that must be addressed at the farm level
- Enables generation of audit reports non-conformity summaries, corrective action reports and certificates that can be provided to retailers and other value-chain participants as evidence of an operation’s efforts toward FSMA implementation.
GLOBALG.A.P. will apply for GFSI recognition for the PHA in 2018.
The standards development process follows:
- Focus Group : November 2017 – January 2018
- Field trials: beginning February 2018
- Public consultation: 16 July - 10 August 2018
- Standard publication and implementation: summer 2018
- Application for GFSI recognition: 2018
Please contact standard@globalgap.org for more information about this new standard.