What is SALSA accreditation and who needs it?
You’ve perfected your artisan chutney, your small-batch sourdough or your hand-made sausages.
A few local delis and retailers want to stock them.
Then, one of your buyers asks, ‘are you SALSA approved?’.
Many small food and drink producers hear that acronym for the first time at this point and wonder what it means. SALSA isn’t a legal requirement, but for many buyers, it works like one.
This blog explains what SALSA certification is, whether you need it, what an audit covers and how to get through one.
What is SALSA accreditation?
SALSA stands for Safe and Local Supplier Approval. It’s a food safety certification scheme designed for small and micro food and drink producers, particularly those supplying local and regional customers.
Strictly speaking, it’s an approval rather than an accreditation. Most people search for ‘SALSA accreditation’, though, and many buyers use the terms interchangeably, so you’ll see both online.
Having a SALSA certificate tells a buyer that an independent auditor has visited your premises, examined your food safety systems and confirmed they meet a recognised standard. Many buyers, especially if they’re small, independent businesses themselves, can’t inspect every supplier they work with, so they rely on the third-party verification that SALSA provides.
The scheme exists because the larger certification standards like BRCGS were written with big manufacturers in mind. They assume the business seeking accreditation has a dedicated technical manager, extensive documentation and a budget to match. A three-person artisan producer likely has none of that.
SALSA covers the same fundamentals (a working HACCP-based system, good hygiene practice and traceability) but pitches its expectations at a scale that small businesses like yours can realistically meet.
Is SALSA legally required?
No. The law requires every UK food business to register with its local authority and operate a food safety management system based on HACCP principles.
That obligation comes from Article 5 of Regulation (EC) 852/2004 and it applies whether you’re selling from a commercial unit or a domestic kitchen.
SALSA certification sits on top of that. It’s a commercial requirement, set by buyers who want proof that your system works in practice as well as on paper. That means you can have a documented system that satisfies the legal minimum and still fail a SALSA audit, because the auditor wants to see evidence that you follow your procedures every day.
Who needs SALSA approval?
Any small producer who wants to sell their products via other businesses will likely need SALSA certification. Typical examples include:
Artisan bakers and cake makers
Sauce, jam and preserve producers
Small-batch butchers and charcutiers
Craft food and drink makers
Delis and farm shops that make their own products
Start-ups pitching to independent retailers for the first time
Buyers who ask for their suppliers to be SALSA-accredited tend to be businesses like farm shops, delis, small retail chains or franchises, and regional wholesalers and foodservice distributors. Some larger buyers also accept it as a starting point for smaller suppliers, though that varies from one retailer to the next.
Who’s eligible?
SALSA is aimed at small and micro businesses. The scheme sets its own limits on size and type of production. Check the current criteria for each standard on SALSA’s website before you commit. Businesses that have outgrown the scheme, or produce higher-risk products at scale, will usually be steered towards BRCGS instead.
However, if you only sell direct to customers through your own shop, market stall or website, and you have no plans to supply anyone else, SALSA is optional. You’ll still need a good hygiene rating and a solid food safety management system, though. But the cost, time and admin involved in getting SALSA certification are hard to justify if no buyers are asking you for it.
What does a SALSA audit cover?
An auditor from an approved certification body will visit your premises, walk through your production process, read your documentation and talk to your staff. A spotless kitchen won’t rescue you if your paperwork is lacking. The auditor will look for consistency between what you say you do and what actually happens on your shop or kitchen floor. A typical SALSA audit will cover:
Your HACCP plan and how well it reflects your products and processes
Your prerequisite programmes, including cleaning, pest control, waste and maintenance
Traceability, including a live test of how quickly you can trace a batch
Product recall and withdrawal procedures
Allergen management and labelling
Supplier approval and raw material controls
Staff training and hygiene records
Where can things go wrong?
Many failed SALSA audits come down to a handful of the same issues. Most of them can be fixed before the auditor arrives:
A HACCP plan that doesn’t match your processes
The auditor will ask you to talk them through what you do, then compare it with your HACCP plan. If it describes a cooking step you don’t have, or misses one you do, it will show up straight away. So, walk through your process step by step with your team, and amend your HACCP so it matches how you work.
Untested recall procedures
Writing a recall procedure is the easy part. You’ll need to be able to demonstrate how it works in practice. So, run a mock recall before your audit. Pick a batch, trace it, work out who you’d need to contact and time the whole exercise. Keep the record. It shows the auditor that your procedure works, and you’ll uncover any gaps while they’re still cheap to fix.
Traceability
The auditor will pick one of your finished products and ask you to trace it back to every ingredient, then forward to every customer who received it. If you can’t put your hands on the batch record, delivery notes and dispatch records without rummaging through your files and folders for an hour, you’ll have a problem.
Gaps in your temperature logs
An auditor who finds a fridge log with three missing days has no way of knowing whether the fridge was in range on those days, so they’ll assume it wasn’t. So, keep your log next to the fridge, name a person responsible for filling it in on each shift and agree who covers when they’re off. Make sure every reading is initialled.
Staff who can’t explain what they do
The auditor will talk to the people on the floor. They’ll ask about things like how often they wash their hands, what they do if a delivery arrives warm or how they handle allergens. A short team briefing before the audit, recorded on a training log, can make a massive difference in ensuring your team is on the same page and ready for the audit.
If the auditor finds a gap, they’ll raise a non-conformity, which is a formal record of the problem. You’ll need to fix it and send evidence to your certification body within its deadline before you’re approved. One or two minor non-conformities are normal. Addressing the issues above will put you in a good position.
How can Beacon Compliance help?
Working out what SALSA requires and then building the systems to meet it is a big job when you’re also running your business, chasing orders and doing most of the production jobs yourself.
At Beacon Compliance, our team has more than 80 years’ combined industry experience working with food businesses, from first-time producers to globally recognised brands. We know what auditors look for and where small producers tend to trip up.
We can run a SALSA gap analysis, develop your HACCP plan and food safety management system, carry out a mock audit so there are no surprises on the day and help you close out any non-conformities afterwards. We also provide on-site and off-site technical support.
Get in touch to book a free, no-obligation consultation with our team to see how we can help you achieve SALSA certification.
