Subject and Scope:

In 1998, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) developed and introduced the BRC Technical Standard and Protocol for companies supplying branded food products to retailers (BRC Technical Standard for Food).
Although originally developed primarily for suppliers of branded food products to retailers, in recent years, the BRC standard has been widely used in other sectors of the food industry, such as the production of additives and food ingredients.

There is also substantial evidence of the use of the BRC standard outside of the United Kingdom, as many companies have adopted it as a basis for supplier assessment programs.

BRC standards are divided into:

BRC Global Standards; BRC Food;
BRC Packaging; BRC Storage & Distribution.