Integrity Report 2021
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MONITORING CERTIFICATION BODY PERFORMANCE
Assessing certification integrity

In addition to annual supervision by their own accreditation bodies according to the international rules for product certification (ISO/IEC 17065), all GLOBALG.A.P. approved certification bodies (CBs) are monitored by GLOBALG.A.P.’s own dedicated team of expert integrity assessors.
The Certification Integrity Program monitors and evaluates the performance of all GLOBALG.A.P. approved CBs through integrity assessments. These integrity assessments ensure that CBs are conducting their audits and inspections in line with GLOBALG.A.P. guidelines and procedures, the standard’s or add-on’s normative documents, and the signed license and certification agreement.
This ensures that the same criteria and quality standards are applied consistently.
Integrity assessments explained
There are several types of integrity assessments: CB office and producer assessments, assessments against the GLOBALG.A.P. Chain of Custody (CoC) standard, and reviews of add-on checklists uploaded to the GLOBALG.A.P. IT systems.
- The offices and producers to be assessed are selected primarily based on risk assessments and the follow-up of sanctions or complaints. However, there is always a percentage of producer assessments where the sample is selected randomly. In general, CB offices are assessed approximately every three years.
- After the assessments, reports are reviewed centrally by the GLOBALG.A.P. Secretariat. The assessments are then classified according to the CB’s performance on a scale of one (unacceptable performance) to five (excellent performance).
- Based on the results of one or more assessment reports, or on failure to demonstrate improvement from previous assessments, the GLOBALG.A.P. Secretariat forwards the information to the Integrity Surveillance Committee.
- The Integrity Surveillance Committee then decides on CB sanctions. Committee members, who are industry experts, are appointed by the Advisory Board but work independently and meet at least twice a year. To ensure an impartial evaluation, the integrity assessment reports are anonymized before delivery to the Integrity Surveillance Committee (i.e., they do not include identifiable information such as the producer’s name, GGN, country, CB name, etc.).
- After Integrity Surveillance Committee meetings, CBs are informed about their proposed sanctions and are given the opportunity to appeal within 14 days of notification.
Certification body sanctions
Sanctioning steps are not necessarily consecutive. In the case of demonstrated fraud or severe breach of normative requirements, the highest sanctions may be applied immediately.
Hover over the sanction steps to read more.
1st Warning
2nd Warning
Yellow Card
Red Card
Contract Cancellation
Certification Integrity team activities

This section does not include training activities – see the Training page for an overview of CB training in 2021.
ACTIVITY | STANDARD/ BENCHMARKED SCHEME | SCOPE | TOTAL NUMBER OF ASSESSMENTS | TOTAL NUMBER OF ASSESSMENTS THAT INCLUDED ADD-ONS | TOTAL NUMBER OF ASSESSMENT DAYS | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
On-site CB office assessment | Integrated Farm Assurance | - | 17 | GRASP: 12 | 30.5 | |||||
NURTURE: 4 | ||||||||||
Off-site CB office assessment | Integrated Farm Assurance | - | 41 | GRASP: 36 | 159 | |||||
NURTURE: 13 | ||||||||||
On-site producer assessment | AMAGAP | Crops (Fruit and vegetables) | 12 | 12 | ||||||
Integrated Farm Assurance | Crops (Fruit and vegetables) | 38 | GRASP: 28 | 53 | ||||||
NURTURE: 8 | ||||||||||
Off-site producer assessment (emergency procedure) | Chain of Custody | Crops | 1 | 1.5 | ||||||
Integrated Farm Assurance | Crops (Fruit and vegetables), Aquaculture | 19 | GRASP: 12 | 38 | ||||||
NURTURE: 5 | ||||||||||
Red Tractor Assurance Standards | Crops (Fruit and vegetables) | 2 | 7 | |||||||
Add-on checklist review | GRASP | - | 4 | 4 | 7 | |||||
NURTURE | - | 13 | 13 | 50.5 | ||||||
TOTAL | 147 | GRASP: 92 | 358.5 | |||||||
NURTURE: 43 |
Integrity assessment locations
In 2021, integrity assessments were conducted in 29 countries.
Hover over the map to see the number of integrity assessment days by country.
Classification of producer and CB office integrity assessments in 2021
Hover over the bar chart sections to see the number of integrity assessments in each class.
Class 5: Excellent performance. No incidents detected. The CB shows a high level of implementation of the GLOBALG.A.P. requirements.
Class 4: Good performance. No systematic and serious non-conformances found.
Class 3: Improvement is required.
Class 2: Poor performance. The CB requires immediate and significant improvement.
Class 1: Unacceptable performance which calls the CB’s overall competency in question.
Selection method of integrity assessments at CB offices
Hover over the sections to see the breakdown.
Selection method of integrity assessments at producer premises
Hover over the sections to see the breakdown.
Evolution of integrity assessment outcomes (2008-2021)
Hover over the bar chart sections to see the integrity assessment results by class.
CB office integrity assessment outcomes
Producer integrity assessment outcomes
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