In the agricultural industry, there are many instances where a business entity owns and operates several production units or operations as part of the company structure. During an audit, the audit team will include all the sections of the business as part of the legal entity that is managed under one management system. It is important that all PUCs, PHCs, and/or production sections which form part of the audit are listed on the audit report. The scope of the audit will be listed and included in the audit report and covered by the Audit Completion Letter. When a business operates another business under the same trade name (or legal entity), but this business has a different management system/team, it is strongly advised and recommended that such a business complies to the requirements of the SIZA programme and is included in the scope of the SIZA audit. The business should register this entity as a separate business on MySIZA and undergo a separate audit. This is to protect the business’ integrity and ensure accurate representation of the business operating under one entity/trade name. If you do not want to audit all your crops at the same time, please register the ones you want to exclude under a different company name.
Processing and Packing Facilities
As the global expectation grows to ensure ethically and environmentally sustainable value chains, South Africa is no different. It will be expected of all processing facilities and packhouses to ensure full compliance throughout their supply chain by 01 April 2023. The expectation is that all facilities that supply to the packhouse must have a valid SIZA audit (or any other acceptable compliance audit) in place to allow for transparency and credibility of the supply chain. During audits, it will be evaluated by the auditing team whether packhouse sources sustainably and have a process in place to ensure their primary suppliers are evaluated according to their social/ethical practices.
Please remember — if you would like to supply and source sustainably, you need to implement ethical practices throughout your business. The requirements are not a list that needs to be ticked or completed, but rather continuing practices that need to become part of your operational activities throughout the business. If you need any clarification around this requirement, please feel free to contact the SIZA office.