Internal Audits and Inspections

This is a brief introduction to encourage you as a supervisor, to continue your learning on how to conduct an effective Audit and be able to support inspections on board.  

Internal Audits are performed by employees of your company. The Internal Auditors must be trained in order to be qualified to perform the audits and to meet the requirements of the standard.

The Internal Audit shows you, and your food safety inspector, be that port health or VSP, whether your food safety system is effective. It is also a great tool for continually increasing the level of safety of your products and services. That is important to your customers and to your company’s bottom line, not to mention helps save lives.

The differences between an Audit and an inspection are highlighted in the table below.  

Good Practice

When conducting your internal audits it is very good practice to involve your team as much as possible. Your teams need to be comfortable being observed, and ready for the formal onboard inspections. Ask your team questions about why they are doing certain controls and what would they do if critical limits are breached.

Audits and inspections generally follow the same structure, such as:

1. Opening meeting.
2. Initial food safety documentation review.
3. Ship inspection.
4. Additional documentation review and conclusion of ship inspection.
5. Analysis of data obtained, additional data collection (if needed), and preparation for the closing meeting.
6. Closing meeting: a summary of the main findings both positive and negative.  

There will always be a report produced that will provide grading and also corrective/remedial actions if necessary.  There will be evidence to address non-conformities and provide advice and guidance on how to correct them. The report may highlight the requirement for a follow-up meeting.

Learning to be an auditor is a great way to develop yourself and improve the food safety culture on board. 

Here is an example of a food safety audit checklist.