Make your program SQF Edition 10 ready.

The headline change. Leadership commitment, employee engagement, documented communication, and periodic assessment with measurable indicators. It has the longest lead time of anything in Edition 10, so it is where the transition starts.

Edition 10 expects a risk-based EMP: sampling locations and frequencies justified by hazard, site-specific organisms, documented acceptance criteria, and trend analysis that catches a pattern before it becomes a finding. A schedule that looked fine under Edition 9 now has to stand up to that scrutiny.

A formal change-management clause is new. Any significant change to process, equipment, formulation, or packaging must be documented, impact-assessed against your HACCP plan and prerequisite programs, communicated to affected staff, and verified.

The 100-point model stays, but core-clause findings carry heavier deductions: a Core Clause Minor now deducts 2 points and a Core Clause Major deducts 7. Beacon applies that weighting to your own internal and mock audits, so the deduction is reflected in audit results: each finding shows what it cost, and a minor or major non-conformance takes more off the score on a core clause than on an ordinary one.

Edition 10 adds one requirement to the food defense threat assessment: it must consider internal and external threats. Beacon keeps the threat assessment next to your food defense plan records, each threat risk-scored with its controls and a scheduled review.