A working countdown for a first SQF certification audit under the SQF Food Safety Code. Print it, put it on the quality office wall, and date each item as it's done. Full context in the guide: SQF Certification: Levels, Costs, and How to Pass Your First Audit.
4–6 Months Out
- Confirm which SQF code and edition your customers require, and the certificate scope (products, processes, site).
- Register the site in the SQFI assessment database; pay the registration fee.
- Appoint the SQF practitioner; complete HACCP training if not already done.
- Complete or refresh the hazard analysis and HACCP plan; validate CCPs and critical limits.
- Gap-assess every clause of the code: have / partial / missing. Turn the misses into a dated action list with owners.
2–3 Months Out
- Stand up all prerequisite programs: sanitation, pest control, supplier approval, allergen control, training, calibration, GMPs.
- Start running every monitoring log and checklist for real, auditors want weeks of completed records, not blank templates.
- Verify records are complete daily: signatures, times, corrective actions for any out-of-spec result.
- Train every shift on the parts of the system they touch, and document the training.
1 Month Out
- Run a full internal audit against the code; write findings up formally.
- Hold a management review; record decisions and resource commitments.
- Close internal findings with documented corrective actions.
- Book the certification body; confirm document review and site audit dates.
Audit Week
- Stage record retrieval: for any product and date, you can produce CCP logs, pre-op checks, training records, and corrective actions in minutes.
- Walk the floor like an auditor: pest evidence, condensation points, chemical storage, hand-wash stations, allergen segregation.
- Brief operators: answer honestly, know where your procedures live, and never guess.
- Prepare a corrective-action process for findings, responses are typically due to the certification body within tight deadlines.