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SQF: Safe Quality Food

SQF is a GFSI-recognised certification programme owned by the Food Industry Association in the United States, and it is the scheme most often required by North American retailers, which is largely a fact about geography rather than about the standard's content.

What it is
Certification scheme
Published by
SQFI, a division of FMI
GFSI recognised
Yes
When it started
1994, in Western Australia
Where it is used
Strongest in North America; also Australia and the Asia-Pacific
Issue Krolda maps
Edition 9

What SQF is

The SQF Program is administered by SQFI, a division of FMI, the Food Industry Association. It is the certification most commonly asked for by United States retailers and food service buyers, in the way BRCGS is in United Kingdom retail and IFS is in continental European private label.

The programme publishes separate codes for different points in the supply chain, including primary production, food manufacturing, storage and distribution, food packaging manufacturing and retail. A site is certified against the code matching its activity.

A distinguishing feature is the separation between food safety and quality. The food safety code is what GFSI recognises; a separate quality certification is available on top for sites whose customers want product quality attributes audited as well as safety. A certificate should be read for which of the two it covers.

SQF requires a named practitioner at the site who has completed HACCP training and is responsible for developing and maintaining the system, which is comparable in intent to the preventive controls qualified individual that 21 CFR part 117 requires.

From a state agriculture department to the grocery industry

SQF began in 1994 as a programme of the Department of Agriculture of Western Australia, which makes it the only standard in this list that started as a government initiative rather than as a retailer or industry one. It was designed to give Australian producers a food safety and quality certification that export customers would accept.

In 2003 it was acquired by the Food Marketing Institute, the United States grocery industry association, and administered through the SQF Institute. That acquisition is why a standard that began in Australia is now most commonly encountered as a North American requirement, and why its language and its regulatory cross-references lean towards the United States.

The codes, and what the fundamentals are

SQF publishes separate codes for different points in the supply chain, including primary production, food manufacturing, storage and distribution, food packaging manufacture, and retail. A site is certified against the code matching what it does, and the certificate names it.

Below the full food safety codes sit the SQF Fundamentals, a graduated programme for sites not yet ready for full certification. As with IFS Global Markets, Fundamentals is a development step and not a GFSI-recognised certification, and treating a Fundamentals certificate as equivalent to a full SQF Food Safety Code certificate is a scope error.

SQF also offers a quality code that can be certified alongside food safety, covering product quality attributes rather than safety. That separation is unusual: most schemes in this list either fold quality into the food safety standard or leave it out entirely.

What the rating means

An SQF audit produces a numerical score and a rating derived from it, and the rating determines the audit frequency that follows. Non-conformities are categorised by severity, and a critical finding has a categorical effect on the outcome rather than a proportional one, in the same way a knock-out does under IFS.

The role a site has to name is the SQF practitioner: an individual, employed by the site, who is responsible for the food safety plan and who has to meet defined competence requirements. It is a named-person requirement in the same family as the preventive controls qualified individual under 21 CFR part 117, and a site operating under both frequently puts the same person in each.

How certification works

A site is audited by a certification body licensed by SQFI. Certification involves a desk audit and a site audit, and unannounced audits form part of the cycle.

Because the programme is United States-centred, SQF certification and FSMA compliance are frequently pursued together, and much of the evidence satisfies both. They remain separate obligations: an FDA investigator audits against 21 CFR part 117, not against SQF.

GFSI recognition

The SQF Food Safety Code is a GFSI-recognised certification programme. The separate SQF quality certification is not part of that recognition.

GFSI does not certify anybody and there is no GFSI certificate. What GFSI recognition actually means.

Where this meets United States regulation

A site selling into the United States is held to 21 CFR whether or not it holds a certification. These are the parts that bear on SQF, reproduced in full on this site because title 21 is United States public domain.

What goes wrong in practice

Certification is a statement about a system on the day it was audited. FDA recall records are what happened afterwards, across the whole industry, and these are the hazards that appear most often in the records a plan built to SQF is meant to control.

What Krolda does with SQF

SQF sells its codes, so Krolda maps SQF by clause identifier and its own summaries only, and hosts none of its text.

Krolda maps Edition 9, checked against the owner’s own publication on 2026-09-13. Issues and editions change and this page does not claim to know which is current: SQFI, a division of FMI publishes that.

Questions

What does SQF stand for?
SQF stands for Safe Quality Food. The SQF Program is administered by SQFI, a division of FMI, the Food Industry Association, and its food safety code is recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative. It is the certification most commonly required by North American retailers.
What is the difference between SQF food safety and SQF quality certification?
The SQF food safety code is what the Global Food Safety Initiative recognises and is what a customer asking for GFSI certification means. SQF quality certification is a separate, additional certification covering product quality attributes rather than safety, held by sites whose customers want both audited. A certificate names which it covers.
Is SQF the same as FSMA compliance?
No. SQF is a private certification programme and FSMA is United States law implemented through 21 CFR. They overlap heavily and are often pursued together in North America, and much of the same evidence satisfies both, but an FDA investigator audits against 21 CFR part 117 rather than against SQF, and certification does not exempt a facility from inspection.

The other standards

A SQF audit asks for the evidence behind each clause, and finding it is the work. Krolda maps supplier documents to the clause they satisfy in FSSC 22000, IFS Food and 21 CFR 117, and routes the corrective action when the evidence is missing.

Early access

Recall records come from the openFDA food enforcement API, published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the public domain. Krolda adds the hazard classification and the clause mapping; neither is an FDA determination. Always check the FDA notice before acting on a recall.