EFISC-GTP — a safety standard for feed raw material trade

What is EFISC-GTP

EFISC-GTP is a safety and good trading practice standard developed specifically for companies engaged in the trade of feed raw materials, in particular raw materials of plant origin — grain, oilseeds, extraction meals, bran and other feed materials destined for further processing or direct use in animal feeding. The standard's name reflects its origin: it was created from the merger of two earlier, related industry initiatives — one focused on the safety of feed raw materials in trade, the other on good trading practice in this sector. The result of this merger is a single, coherent standard covering both dimensions at once.

Unlike standards focused on the production process itself, EFISC-GTP looks at raw material safety through the lens of the trade transaction — what happens to the raw material from the moment of purchase, through any storage and transhipment, to sale to the next link in the chain. It emphasises that a trading company must be able to demonstrate where a given raw material came from, what checks it underwent, and to whom it was sold — not merely that the transaction was formally documented with an invoice.

EFISC-GTP functions as a standalone standard — a company may hold an EFISC-GTP certificate regardless of whether it is also a GMP+ participant. In practice, however, the two standards often coexist at the same companies, because they cover related areas of feed chain safety and are recognised by a similar group of customers, particularly in Western Europe.

Origin of the standard — why raw material trade needed a standard of its own

The trade of plant-origin feed raw materials has a different risk profile than the production of compound feed or feed additives. A trading company typically does not physically process the raw material — it buys it from a farmer, a collection point or another intermediary, may store it, tranship it, possibly blend batches with similar parameters, and then sell it on. The risks in this chain therefore centre not on the manufacturing process but on the origin of the raw material, its storage and transport conditions, and the reliability of the information passed between successive links in the transaction.

Standards focused on production, such as GMP+ for the production of feed materials, compound feed or feed additives, or standards addressing additives, such as FAMI-QS, do not directly address this specific profile — they focus on controlling the manufacturing process rather than good trading practice, contract negotiation or risk management across a chain of intermediaries. This is why the industry trading in plant raw materials for feed purposes developed its own dedicated approach — combining raw material safety principles with the principles of good trading practice, which is exactly what EFISC-GTP is.

It is worth stressing that the origin of the standard should be understood, in general terms, as the industry's response to the need for unified, independently verifiable rules of conduct in the trade of plant raw materials — not as a regulation imposed top-down by a legislator. Like other private standards in the feed sector, EFISC-GTP is the result of a consensus among market participants, who recognised that simply complying with feed law is not always enough to build trust between parties to a trade transaction spread across many countries.

Scope of certification — who EFISC-GTP applies to

EFISC-GTP certification is addressed primarily at trading companies engaged in the purchase, sale and brokerage of plant-origin feed raw materials. In practice this covers several typical business profiles: companies buying grain and other plant raw materials directly from farmers for feed purposes, businesses trading raw materials for export or import between European countries, feed brokers who intermediate in transactions without physically holding the goods, and companies operating grain elevators and other storage facilities used in the trade of plant raw materials.

The scope of certification may cover trading itself (purchase-and-sale transactions, brokerage) as well as storage of raw materials carried out by the same company — in many cases the two are closely linked, since a trading company often has its own or rented storage infrastructure through which the goods physically pass between purchase and sale. The certificate should precisely reflect the actual scope of the business — the risk profile of a company acting purely as a documentary intermediary looks different from that of a company physically handling goods through its own elevator.

Companies of various sizes qualify for certification — from large entities trading significant volumes of raw materials on export markets, to smaller, regional intermediaries and collection points working with local farms. Company size mainly affects the degree of formalisation of documentation and how elaborate the procedures are, not the substantive scope of the requirements, which are essentially the same regardless of company size.

Requirements of the standard — good trading practice and safety control

EFISC-GTP is built around two groups of requirements. The first concerns good trading practice — the principles of honest, transparent conduct of transactions: clear contractual terms, a precise description of the subject of the transaction (the type of raw material, its quality specification, its origin), reliable documentation of every transaction, and defined conduct in disputed situations, for example when the delivered goods deviate from the agreed specification. The second group concerns quality and safety control of the raw material itself within the trade chain — supplier verification, inspection of incoming goods, proper storage and, where relevant, laboratory testing confirming compliance with safety requirements.

A key element common to both groups of requirements is transaction traceability — the company's ability to unambiguously link every batch of raw material sold to a specific supplier, purchase date and, where applicable, how it was stored or transhipped in the meantime. In practice this means keeping a consistent transaction register in which a batch of raw material does not "get lost" between purchase and sale, even if it was blended with another batch of similar quality parameters in the meantime or split into smaller lots sold to different customers.

The standard also requires a documented quality management system tailored to the specifics of trading activity — including criteria for qualifying and periodically evaluating suppliers, a procedure for handling raw material that does not meet specification, and a plan of action in the event of a safety incident (for example, discovering a contamination level above the permitted limit in a batch already sold). The company must be able to demonstrate not only that such a system exists on paper, but that it actually operates in day-to-day trading practice.

Managing risks specific to plant raw materials

Plant raw materials used in animal feeding carry specific risks, which EFISC-GTP addresses in a targeted way. One of the most important is the risk of mycotoxins — toxic metabolites produced by moulds that develop on grain and other plant raw materials, particularly under unfavourable humidity conditions during cultivation, harvest or storage. A trading company should have a system in place for assessing this risk — taking into account, among other things, the geographic origin of the raw material, weather conditions in a given season and the results of previous testing — together with a suitably chosen sampling and laboratory testing plan.

Another important area is control of plant protection product residues. Plant raw materials intended for feed purposes should meet permitted pesticide residue levels in line with applicable regulations, and a trading company — especially one active on export markets, where customer requirements may be stricter than the statutory minimum — should be knowledgeable about the plant protection practices used by its suppliers and, where relevant, verify this through testing.

The standard also draws attention to risks associated with the transport and storage of plant raw materials — cross-contamination resulting from carriage in the same means of transport as incompatible loads, unsuitable humidity and temperature conditions in storage that favour mould growth, or the presence of pests in storage facilities. A company should have documented rules in place to minimise these risks — including criteria for selecting hauliers and verifying the cleanliness of transport vehicles before loading feed raw material.

EFISC-GTP and GMP+ — what the two standards share and where they differ

EFISC-GTP and GMP+ share many common foundations — both concern feed chain safety, both require traceability of transactions and raw materials, and both rely on a documented quality management system and risk analysis. For a company that already meets the requirements of one of these standards, implementing the other usually involves less additional effort than building a system from scratch, because many documentation elements — quality policy, supplier management procedures, a non-conformity handling plan — can be partly shared between the two standards.

The difference lies mainly in scope and emphasis. GMP+ is a broader system, covering the full spectrum of activity in the feed chain — production of feed materials, compound feed and additives, transport, and also trade and storage within a separate scope described on the page GMP+ for trade and storage. EFISC-GTP, by contrast, focuses exclusively on the trade of raw materials, with particular emphasis on plant-origin raw materials and on good trading practice as a distinct, explicitly named element of the standard — something GMP+ does not single out in this form.

In practice, a company trading in plant raw materials for feed purposes that wants to reach a wide group of customers across Europe often considers both standards in parallel — GMP+ for trade and storage as a gateway to the network of participants across the whole GMP+ system, and EFISC-GTP as confirmation of compliance with good trading practices specific to plant raw materials, expected in particular by Western European customers specialising in this market segment.

Who should consider EFISC-GTP certification

EFISC-GTP certification is worth considering above all for companies whose core business is buying and selling grain and other plant raw materials for feed purposes — especially if part of their sales is directed towards export to Western European countries, where customers often expect suppliers to hold an independently confirmed quality management system for their trading activity. A typical profile interested in certification is a collection point working with a network of farms, a trading company specialising in exporting feed raw materials, or a broker operating at the intersection of farmers and the feed industry.

Certification is also a natural step for companies operating grain elevators, which combine a storage function with active participation in raw material trade — they buy goods from farmers, store them, and then sell them on, often after assembling batches of uniform quality specification from smaller deliveries by many producers. This kind of business model generates exactly the risks that EFISC-GTP places the greatest emphasis on — traceability of blended batches and quality control of the raw material during storage.

On the other hand, companies operating solely on the domestic market, with a limited group of regular customers who do not require certification, may first want to assess whether the real commercial benefit of holding a certificate outweighs the cost and effort of implementing and maintaining it — the decision to certify should follow from the actual requirements of the market the company wants to operate in, not from the mere availability of the standard.

Mutual recognition and relationship to other standards

In Western European trade practice for feed raw materials, a GTP certificate is sometimes required together with GMP+ by customers who want assurance both of the supplier's membership in the wider feed chain safety system and of compliance with good trading practices specific to plant raw materials. This does not mean that the two certificates are equivalent or mutually interchangeable — rather, they function as complementary elements, each addressing a somewhat different aspect of trading risk.

Companies also active in the feed additives area may encounter the FAMI-QS standard, dedicated to producers of additives and premixes — although its substantive scope differs from EFISC-GTP, both standards rely on similar logic: a documented quality management system, risk analysis and traceability, which makes it easier for companies operating in several segments of the feed chain to hold several certificates at once without excessive duplication of documentation.

It is also worth remembering the QS standard, popular especially on the German market — some German customers expect suppliers of feed raw materials to comply with this system specifically, independently of or alongside GMP+ and EFISC-GTP. Which combination of certificates actually makes sense for a given company depends on the markets and customers the company sells to — so a decision on the scope of certification is best preceded by a conversation with key customers or potential trading partners.

EFISC-GTP certification process

The general course of EFISC-GTP implementation and certification is similar to the certification process for other feed chain safety standards, although the details — required documentation, audit scope, evaluation criteria — are specific to this standard and to the good origin of plant raw materials. The starting point is usually a review of the company's current trading practices against the standard's requirements: how transactions are documented, criteria for selecting suppliers, procedures for inspecting incoming goods, and traceability of batches during storage and sale.

On this basis, the company develops or adapts its quality management system documentation, implements any missing procedures and introduces changes to day-to-day trading practice wherever the initial review identified gaps. The next step is an audit carried out by an independent, accredited certification body — covering both a documentation review and practical verification, for example checking whether specific transactions can be traced from supplier to customer with full traceability maintained. Following a positive audit result, the company receives the certificate, which is subject to periodic re-verification to maintain its validity.

The general course of action shared by many feed standards — from an initial review, through implementation and audit, to maintaining the certificate — is described in more detail using GMP+ as an example on the page GMP+ certification process. It is worth remembering, however, that despite the similarity of the general scheme, the specific documentation requirements and audit criteria of EFISC-GTP differ in detail and should be verified directly against the current version of the standard and the guidance of the relevant certification body.

Benefits of EFISC-GTP certification

The primary, practical benefit of holding an EFISC-GTP certificate is access to a wider group of customers — especially in Western Europe, where certification of feed raw material suppliers is often a condition of entry into the supply chain of large processors and feed producers. For a trading company, the certificate functions as a clear, independently verified signal that its trading practices and raw material safety controls meet standards recognised in the industry, which shortens the time needed to build trust in a relationship with a new customer.

Implementing the standard also brings internal benefits, independent of any specific customer's requirements — an organised traceability system makes it easier to quickly locate the source of a problem if a non-conformity is found in goods already sold, and clearly defined supplier evaluation criteria reduce the risk of purchasing raw material of uncertain origin or elevated contamination risk. Over the longer term, this can meaningfully reduce costs associated with complaints, returns or the need to withdraw a batch of goods from the market.

Companies that combine EFISC-GTP with GMP+ for trade and storage gain an additional synergy effect — part of the audit, documentation and procedures overlap between the standards, which lowers the relative cost and effort of maintaining both certificates at once compared with implementing them completely independently of each other.

Common questions and concerns among companies considering implementation

In conversations with companies considering EFISC-GTP certification, similar concerns recur. Some companies wonder whether the standard is too elaborate for their scale of business — in practice the scope of required documentation can be adapted to company size, and what matters most is that the implemented procedures actually reflect the real way transactions are conducted, rather than being more elaborate than actually needed. Other companies ask whether certification makes sense if they currently work mainly with domestic customers — here the answer depends on the company's development plans: a certificate implemented in advance makes it easier to enter export markets quickly when the opportunity arises.

A frequent question is also how certification affects the day-to-day work of the trading team — experience shows that after an initial implementation period, the additional documentation (recording the source of a raw material, inspection results on receipt, information passed to the customer) becomes a natural part of the sales process, not generating a significant additional burden, provided the documentation system was sensibly designed from the outset and matched to the real flow of information within the company, rather than imposed as a separate, parallel paper trail.

Documentation and traceability in trading practice

In practice, the most important element that EFISC-GTP auditors focus on is a company's ability to reconstruct the full history of a specific batch of raw material — from the moment of purchase, through any storage and transhipment, to sale to the customer. A well-designed traceability system makes it possible to answer, in a short time, questions such as: which supplier a given batch came from and on what date, what quality control results accompanied it, and to whom and when it was sold. At companies that blend batches from different deliveries, it is also essential to keep a record of such operations — even a simple table showing which input batches went into a given output batch significantly eases the later tracing of the goods' origin when needed.

Transaction documentation should include not only standard commercial data (quantity, price, parties to the transaction) but also information relevant from a safety point of view — the declared quality specification of the raw material, results of any laboratory testing, and transport conditions. In practice many companies keep this electronically, linked to the warehouse management system, which significantly shortens the time needed to reconstruct a batch's history compared with documentation kept purely on paper, scattered across different departments of the company.

Audit and maintaining the certificate over time

As with other feed chain safety standards, an EFISC-GTP certificate is not granted once and for an unlimited period — its validity is maintained through periodic surveillance audits that check whether the company still meets the standard's requirements in practice, not only at the time of the initial certification audit. Changes in the company's activity — for example, expanding the range of raw materials traded, opening a new storage facility or changing key suppliers — should be reflected in the system documentation on an ongoing basis, so that the scope of certification stays aligned with the business actually being conducted.

In practice, companies that treat EFISC-GTP requirements as a permanent element of quality management, rather than solely as preparation for a one-off audit, pass subsequent surveillance audits much more easily — documentation is kept continuously up to date, and any deviations from procedures are spotted and corrected before they become a formal non-conformity during an auditor's visit.

Cost of implementing EFISC-GTP

The cost of implementing and maintaining an EFISC-GTP certificate depends on many factors — the scale of trading activity, the number of storage locations covered by the scope of certification, the extent to which the company already has organised documentation (for example thanks to an earlier implementation of GMP+ or another standard), and also the chosen certification body and the scope of advisory support used during preparation. Indicative cost brackets are best established individually — a general overview of the factors influencing certification costs in the feed sector is described on the page Certification costs.

It is also worth remembering that the cost of certification is not only the fee for the certification body's audit itself, but also staff time spent preparing documentation, any adjustments to the warehouse management system or purchasing procedures, and — where external advisory support is used — the cost of implementation support. In practice, companies that plan this process well from the start avoid costly, hastily made fixes right before the audit date.

Glossary

EFISC-GTP

A European safety and good trading practice standard for the trade of feed raw materials, especially of plant origin, created from the merger of two earlier, related industry initiatives.

Good Trading Practice

A set of good trading practice principles — honest, transparent conduct of transactions, precise documentation of contractual terms, and fair conduct in disputes between parties trading in feed raw materials.

Feed raw material of plant origin

Plant material, such as grain, oilseeds, extraction meals or bran, used directly in animal feeding or as an ingredient in compound feed production.

Feed broker

A trade intermediary participating in purchase-and-sale transactions of feed raw materials without physically holding the goods, responsible for negotiating and documenting the terms of the transaction in line with good trading practice.

Grain elevator

A storage facility used to receive, store and dispatch grain and other plant raw materials, often also serving as a collection and sales point within the trade chain.

Mycotoxins

Toxic metabolites produced by moulds that develop on plant raw materials, particularly under unfavourable humidity conditions during cultivation, harvest or storage — one of the key risks controlled in the trade of feed raw materials.