IFS vs BRCGS: Which Certification Do German Retail Buyers Actually Require?

IFS vs BRCGS: Which Certification Do German Retail Buyers Actually Require?

Ask five consultants whether you need IFS Food or BRCGS to sell food into Germany and you will get five confident, contradictory answers. The honest answer is shorter: both are widely accepted, but German retail grew up with IFS — and when a German category buyer says "certification," IFS Food is usually what they picture.

Here is the practical breakdown for a food manufacturer deciding where to spend audit money.

What each standard is

• IFS Food (International Featured Standards) was created by the German retail federation together with its French counterpart, specifically to audit suppliers of retail own-brand food. It is the house standard of German and much of continental European retail.
• BRCGS Food Safety (formerly BRC) was created by the British Retail Consortium and became the default across the UK, Ireland and much of the anglophone world.

Both audit similar ground: HACCP-based food safety, quality management, traceability, site standards, product defence. Both are benchmarked by GFSI (the Global Food Safety Initiative), which formally means a retailer that accepts GFSI-recognised certification should accept either.

"GFSI-recognised" — the theory and the practice

In theory, GFSI recognition makes IFS and BRCGS interchangeable. In practice, buyers have habits:

• Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy: IFS is the standard buyers name in supplier documents and private-label tenders. BRCGS is almost always accepted as equivalent — but IFS is the language the market speaks. If your commercial focus is DACH retail and own-brand, IFS is the friction-free choice.
• UK and Ireland: BRCGS is the default expectation; IFS is less familiar.
• Nordics and Benelux: genuinely mixed; GFSI equivalence is respected, and either standard typically works.

The pattern for an exporter is simple: certify for the market that pays you. A Polish or Czech producer whose growth map is Germany and the wider DACH region gets more commercial mileage from IFS Food; a producer targeting the UK first leans BRCGS. Producers selling into both often end up holding both — usually sequenced, not simultaneously.

What German buyers expect, channel by channel

Certification expectations in Germany are channel-specific, not uniform:

• Retail chains and discounters (own-brand and branded): IFS Food (or accepted GFSI equivalent) is the de-facto entry ticket. Discounters' private-label tenders state it explicitly.
• Meat and meat products: on top of IFS, participation in Germany's QS scheme (Qualität und Sicherheit) is often expected by retail — we covered what meat buyers require here. Wholesale, foodservice and processing buyers frequently work outside QS.
• Organic ranges: EU organic certification is the legal baseline; the specialist Bio trade often expects a German association standard — Bioland, Naturland or Demeter — on top, while conventional retail's Bio own-brands generally buy on EU certification.
• Foodservice, wholesale and industrial buyers: more pragmatic. IFS or BRCGS helps, but dairy-ingredient buyers, catering wholesalers and processors weigh specs, consistency and logistics at least as heavily as the certificate on the wall.

Which should you get first?

A decision rule that has served the producers we work with:

1. Where is your first serious revenue? DACH/continental retail → IFS Food. UK retail → BRCGS. Both → certify for the nearer, larger contract first.
2. What do your target buyers' documents actually say? Private-label tenders and supplier questionnaires name their standard. Two or three real tender documents from your category answer the question better than any consultant.
3. What does your customer base already audit you against? If you hold one standard with good scores, switching costs usually outweigh benefits — GFSI equivalence plus a good audit history persuades most continental buyers.

And a note on level: IFS grades audits (Foundation/Higher level; BRCGS uses letter grades). German buyers notice the grade, not just the logo. A Higher-level IFS result is a commercial asset in tenders; a scrape-through pass is a conversation.

Certification opens the door. It doesn't walk you through it.

One thing certification does not do: get you meetings. IFS on the wall makes you qualifiable; it does not make you known. The German buyers who could list your product — category buyers, distributors, private-label sourcing teams — still have to hear about you, in German, inside their review window, with a spec sheet that answers their first three questions.

That second half is what ProspectX does. We book food manufacturers into meetings with the right named buyers across Germany and our other markets — and part of how we qualify every buyer is matching their certification expectations against what you actually hold, so your first meetings are with buyers you can already supply.

Wondering whether your current certification set is enough for the buyers you want? Book a 30-minute Discovery Call — we will tell you honestly, including when the answer is "get the audit first, then talk to buyers."