Cosmetics and household chemicals manufacturers supplying retail chains – what does the IFS HPC standard offer them?

Cosmetics and household chemicals manufacturers supplying their products to European retail chains operate in a sector where product quality and safety requirements are constantly increasing. ISO 22716 sets out GMP requirements for cosmetics manufacturers, but retail chains – particularly German and French ones – are increasingly turning to their own supplier verification tool: IFS HPC. This standard is still relatively little known in Poland, yet it can determine access to key markets.

What is IFS HPC and how does it differ from ISO 22716

IFS HPC (International Featured Standard Household and Personal Care) is a quality standard developed by IFS Management GmbH for manufacturers and packagers of household and personal care products. The IFS HPC standard has been implemented in the cosmetics and household chemicals industry for several years, and the system itself is becoming increasingly popular in Poland. This is linked to the growing demands of retail chains regarding the quality and safety of these products.

The standard covers four product groups: cosmetics and personal care products, household and automotive cleaning products (including air fresheners and scented candles), products intended for contact with food (e.g. plastic cutlery), and personal hygiene products excluding cosmetics.

The key difference between IFS HPC and ISO 22716 lies in the nature of the two documents. ISO 22716 is a GMP standard – it sets out requirements regarding production conditions, hygiene and documentation, but is not linked to a scoring system or a retailer recognition network. IFS HPC is an audit standard linked to the IFS system – meaning that audit results are published in the IFS database, accessible to all certified retail chain customers, and the certificate is uniformly recognised by over 400 retail chains worldwide without the need for separate qualification audits. For a manufacturer supplying multiple retail chains simultaneously, this represents a tangible saving in time and resources.

The standard may only be implemented by organisations that process the product or where there is a risk of product contamination during primary packaging. Companies that solely distribute or act as intermediaries in sales without coming into contact with the product should consider IFS Broker or IFS Logistics.

Requirements and benefits from the manufacturer’s perspective

IFS HPC is divided into five sections covering topics such as top management responsibility, management system, resource management, production process, measurement and analysis, and corrective actions and incident management. The assessment system is based on a points system – similar to IFS Food – with a basic level of 75% and a higher level of 95%.

The KO (Knock Out) requirements in IFS HPC relate to areas of critical importance for product safety – failure to meet them automatically terminates the audit. These include, amongst others, an implemented and functioning quality management system, compliance with legal requirements regarding product composition and labelling, complaint management and product recall procedures, and a hygiene and contamination control system.

The benefits of holding IFS HPC certification for a manufacturer include, above all, simplified access to retail chains and the elimination of multiple qualification audits, the publication of results in the IFS database accessible to potential customers, a strengthened negotiating position vis-à-vis retail chains, and a signal to the market that the company manages quality in accordance with a recognised standard. Manufacturers who already hold ISO 22716 have a good foundation – however, implementing IFS HPC requires supplementing the system with requirements specific to the IFS audit standard, including the scoring system and KO requirements.