Accreditation
Picture this: a buyer in Rotterdam receives a lab report from a supplier’s laboratory on another continent. The numbers look fine — but why should they believe them? That’s the problem accreditation solves.
Definition
Accreditation is formal recognition — granted by an independent accreditation body — that a laboratory, certification body, or inspection body is technically competent to do specific work, like food testing or auditing, to defined standards. Think of it as the license behind the license.
Key facts
- Testing and calibration labs are assessed against ISO/IEC 17025; inspection bodies against ISO/IEC 17020. For certification bodies, it depends on what’s being certified: product certification (like BRCGS) uses ISO/IEC 17065, while management-system certification (like ISO 22000 or FSSC 22000) uses ISO/IEC 17021-1.
- Here’s a detail people miss: the body that certifies your plant to FSSC 22000 or BRCGS must itself be accredited — by a body belonging to the International Accreditation Forum (IAF). Trust is a chain, and accreditation is every link.
- It’s technically voluntary, but try selling to a major retailer with a non-accredited certificate. Most buyers simply won’t accept it.
- Accredited labs don’t just get assessed once — they take part in proficiency testing (round-robins against other labs) to prove they stay sharp.
- That little accreditation mark on a test report? It means the result is recognized internationally, not just in the lab’s home country.
Why it matters
Accreditation arguments usually surface at the worst moment — a disputed result, a rejected consignment, a customer questioning your certificate. Consider the importer whose supplier’s “lab report” came from an unaccredited facility while the buyer’s accredited retest disagreed: with no common basis of trust, nobody could prove which result was right. Choose accredited labs and accredited certification bodies from the start, and you never have that fight.
Sources: ISO/IEC 17025; ISO/IEC 17020; ISO/IEC 17065; ISO/IEC 17021-1; IAF/ILAC arrangements.
Quick reference
| Term | Standard | Applies to |
| Lab accreditation | ISO/IEC 17025 | Testing & calibration labs |
| Product certification | ISO/IEC 17065 | Bodies certifying products (e.g., BRCGS) |
| Management-system certification | ISO/IEC 17021-1 | Bodies certifying systems (e.g., ISO 22000, FSSC 22000) |
| Inspection body accreditation | ISO/IEC 17020 | Inspection activities |
| Global recognition | IAF / ILAC arrangements | Mutual acceptance across borders |