RILA, British retailers to develop standards

The Retail Industry Leaders Association and the British Retail Consortium have partnered to create a global manufacturing standard for consumer goods.

   The partnership advances the retail industry’s objective of complimenting existing product safety requirements by addressing safety protocols for manufacturer and supplier operations, the groups said Monday.

   The goal is to help retailers comply with new regulations set forth in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), U.S. legislation that’s to go into effect Feb. 10. The act requires retailers to sell only products meeting safety standards and obtain certificates of conformity for each batch of imported products. The BRC-RILA standard is aiming to establish a “certifiable worldwide measure by which manufacturing operations are set.”

   The groups noted that in 1998 the BRC established a technical standard for retailers to use with food suppliers and manufacturers, and today, the majority of U.K. and many European and global retailers will only consider relationships with food suppliers that have been certified under a global standard such as the BRC Global Standard.

   “Given the success of the BRC Global Standard for Food, the BRC has established additional industry standards for operations involving packaging, storage and distribution and finally, consumer products,” RILA and BRC said.

   “The complex nature of supply chains for consumer products means that, to be fully effective, the Consumer Product Standard needs the backing of a critical mass of retailers,” said Geoff Spriegel, director of BRC global standards, in a statement. “The support of the U.S. retailers provides a major boost to the development of the consumer product scheme which could eventually exceed the uptake of the highly successful food standard.”

   The partnership was formally approved by RILA’s board of directors on Jan. 25.

Source: American Shipper