There are three levels consisting of the certificate system of International Standards Organization: the organizations, the certification bodies and the accreditation bodies. The certification bodies are the judges, responsible for judging and issuing certificates to applying organizations; the accreditation bodies are the supervisors, responsible for supervising and auditing the certification bodies, ensuring certificates issued by them are accepted by the general public. Throughout the process, the applying organizations apply for certification from the certification bodies of International Standards Organization in order to obtain certificates. The certification bodies, in order to demonstrate their justness, will seek recognition from the accreditation bodies.

Hence, “certification“ means an just and independent third party “certification body“ which issues papers to guarantee personnel, products, procedures or services conform to the required procedures or activities. Certification bodies include Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection, M.O.E.A. (BSMI), Bell Laboratory (BQR), Det Norsk Veritas ( DNV), British Standards Institution (BSI), Bureau Veritas Quality International (BVQI), Societe Generale de Surveillance ( SGS)….All these certification bodies must be recognized by accreditation bodies first.

Accreditation means the official written recognition issued by the competent authorities to “certification bodies“ or “training organizations“ capable of executing required work procedures or activities. Accreditation bodies include Taiwan Accreditation Foundation ( TAF), China National Accrediation Board(CNAB), Registrar Accreditation Board ( RAB), Raad Voor Accreditatie (RVA), Deutschen Akkreditierungs Rat (DAR), Standard Council of Canada (SCC) , Korea Accreditation Board( KAB), Japanese Accreditation Board(JAB).

Therefore, enterprises shouldn’t be confusing “certification“ with “accreditation“ in their promotional materials or advertisement. Take ISO Quality and Food Safety Management System as an example, “ ISO 9001 & 22000” fall into the category of “ management system certification”, meaning organizations with their own procedures and management rules to conduct food certification. Organizations of issuing certificates such as TAF or any competent authorities mentioned above must, first, accredit the qualifications of the certification bodies, then, the accredited certification bodies can conduct the certification procedures of the external audit requested by the applying enterprises. The accredited certification bodies include previously mentioned SGS and BSMI.

CAS and GMP Logos promoted earlier in Taiwan food industry fell into the category of “ product certification “ which required a third party providing a written guarantee, showing certain product conformed to the required procedures. Such certification was usually applied in safety, sanitation and environmental protection. In the case of “the logo of Certified Agricultural Standards (CAS)“ , “Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan“ is the so-called third-part certification body ; “Food Industry Research and Development Institute“ or “China Grain Products Research and Development Institute“ and “Livestock Research Institute“ are the so-called “ accreditation bodies “, and suppliers are the organizations being certified.

However, based on the standards of ISO/IEC17025 certification requirements for laboratory management, TAF “testing lab accreditation“ management system, which is still in construction, falls into the “laboratory accreditation“ category. Chinese National Laboratory Accreditation (CNLA) was replaced by Department of Laboratory accreditation of TAF. In order to integrate all accrediting resources, under the direction of Ministry of Economy, Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection was assigned to promote the merger of CNLA and CNAB ( formerly known as Chinese Taipei Components Certification Board ) ; thus, a non-profit organization “ Taiwan Accreditation Foundation – (TAF ) was established. All “accredited “ laboratories are qualified for issuing laboratory test reports with accredited logo recognized by international accreditation bodies.

British Retail Consortium ( BRC ) belongs to “Product Certification Project“ or “Project certification plan“ or “Product Certification Scheme). It is the certification system for particular products applied the same particular requirements and the same procedures.

American Institute of Baking (AIB) belongs to auditing organization of individual system, auditing food safety of the applying organization according to the HACCP regulations. However, AIB does not have a so-called “AIB Certification Logo“. It can only issue AIB Certificate of Achievement and Certificate of Participation.

Note : In Mainland China, “ Accreditation “ is translated as “ 認可 “ and “ Certification “ translated as “ 認證”