BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7
BRCGS packaging visitors: what Issue 7 asks you to show about the people at your door
Your auditor signs your visitor book before they look at anything else, and the clause they are thinking about while they do it is 4.4.2, the one that asks for a visitor reporting system. This page quotes the five clauses of Packaging Materials Issue 7 that reach your reception, from BRCGS’s own documents, and says what an iPad at the door records towards each of them.
Sign in on a demonstration kiosk, then open the fire roll call on your phone. Do not enter real details: everything typed is deleted within the hour.
From £150 a month plus VAT, iPad and stand included. We are not auditors or consultants.
What the Standard asks
One clause about the front door, and four that lean on it
Issue 7 puts visitors in two places: section 4.4, site security and product defence, where the visitor reporting system lives, and section 6, personnel, where a visitor is held to the same hygiene, health and clothing rules as your own staff before they go in.
Clause 4.4.2
Access controlled, and a visitor reporting system
Processes shall be in place to ensure only authorised personnel have access to manufacturing and storage areas, and access to the site by personnel, contractors and visitors shall be controlled. A visitor reporting system shall be in place. Personnel shall be trained in site security procedures and encouraged to report unidentified or unknown visitors.
The clause your reception book is being asked to satisfy, and the one that uses the words visitor reporting system. It does not say what the system is made of. It says access is controlled, that there is a system, and that your own people know to question a face they do not recognise, which a printed badge makes a great deal easier than a signature in a book.
Clause 4.4.1, as amended by P708
The threat assessment and the product defence plan
The company shall undertake a documented threat assessment of the security arrangements and potential risks to the products from any deliberate attempt to inflict contamination or damage. This threat assessment shall include both internal and external threats. The output from this assessment shall be a product defence plan, specifying systems and procedures to be implemented to mitigate identified risks.
Position Statement P708, effective from 10 August 2026, adds one sentence to this clause: where personnel are engaged in threat assessments and product defence plans, the individual or team responsible shall be appropriately trained, with a pointer to clause 6.1. The plan is yours to write. What a visitor record gives it is the answer to who was in the building on a given day, and who let them in.
Clause 6.4.2
Health confirmation before entry
Where permitted by law, visitors and contractors shall be required to complete a health questionnaire or otherwise confirm that they are not suffering from any symptoms of infection, disease or conditions which may put product safety at risk, prior to being allowed into manufacturing, packing or storage areas.
The one clause at your door that has to be answered before somebody goes in rather than filed after. It offers two routes, a questionnaire or a confirmation, and the words prior to being allowed into are what a book on the counter was never built to prove.
Section 6.2 and clause 6.2.6
Hygiene rules that reach visitors
Personnel, including those supplied by agencies, visitors and contractors shall comply. Where visitors cannot comply with site hygiene requirements, suitable control procedures shall be in place (e.g. non-handling of product, use of gloves).
The section heading puts visitors and contractors inside the personal hygiene requirements, and 6.2.6 assumes some of them will not be able to meet every rule. Both start with the rules reaching the visitor before they cross the barrier, and with being able to show that they did.
Clause 6.5.2
Protective clothing for contractors and visitors
Protective clothing worn by personnel, temporary personnel, contractors and visitors in manufacturing and storage areas shall be clean and provide adequate coverage of personal clothing.
The same rule for a visiting engineer as for a line operative. Clause 6.3.6 sits beside it: facilities for visitors and contractors shall enable compliance with the site’s personal hygiene requirements. The rule has to be told, and the telling is what a record of the visit can carry.
Quoted from BRCGS’s Auditor Checklist and Site Self-Assessment Tool for the Global Standard Packaging Materials Issue 7 (P701a, version 1, 28 October 2024) and from Position Statement P708 (version 1, 12 May 2026, effective 10 August 2026), both read on26 September 2026. Issue 7 was published on 28 October 2024 and audits against it began in April 2025. Nothing in the Standard tells you to buy anything: a paper book that is genuinely filled in every time can satisfy 4.4.2. What paper struggles with is 6.4.2, a confirmation that has to happen before entry, for a contractor who was here for one morning eight months ago.
At the door
What the kiosk records towards each clause
The same iPad every site gets, showing your declaration. On a packaging site the declaration is the point: a name and a time is a log, and a name, a time and an accepted health declaration is the confirmation 6.4.2 asks for.
The confirmation 6.4.2 asks for, accepted by name
Your health declaration, in your own wording, on the iPad at sign in. The visitor reads it and accepts it before the sign in completes, or presses Go Back and speaks to their host. The kiosk asks no questions and stores no answers: it records that this person accepted this exact wording at this time, which is the clause’s second route, otherwise confirm.
Rules that reach contractors as well as customers
Protective clothing, jewellery, glass and hard plastics, no product handling: the rules from sections 6.2 and 6.5 go in the same text, so a maintenance contractor and a visiting buyer read the same thing, and each acceptance is stored against the named person with a timestamp and the fingerprint of the wording they saw.
The visitor reporting system, on the day
Name, company, the person they came to see, a vehicle registration if they gave one, the time in and the time out. Filter the record by date, by company or by host and export it as a file that opens without our software. A customer complaint traced to a Tuesday becomes a list of who was on site that Tuesday.
A roll call that includes the goods in traffic
Everyone signed in on the kiosk is on a live list readable from any phone at the assembly point. A courier who only uses the delivery drop-off is logged as a delivery, not as a person on site, so a driver who goes beyond the dock should sign in. Most converters put a second unit at goods in rather than moving the first.
The kiosk does not make a site compliant, certified or audit ready. It produces a timestamped record for the clauses named on this page, and the auditor decides what that record is worth.
The visitor management kiosk in fullThe same page for the Food Safety Standard, Issue 9The same page for Storage and Distribution, Issue 4If the auditor arrives unannounced, what BRCGS079 says about the first 30 minutesAfter an audit: a visitor control non-conformity, and the days to answer itFree visitor health questionnaire templateOur security and sub-processors
On the day
Five things a BRCGS auditor asks at reception, and where the answers come from
None of these is difficult if the record exists. All of them are awkward if the answer starts with somebody going to look for last year’s book.
- Show me your visitor reporting system.The kiosk itself, and the records it holds, on screen at the desk you are stood at, with the export beside it.
- How do visitors confirm they are free of symptoms before they go in?The declaration on the kiosk, in your wording, and the record of each person who accepted it with the time.
- How does a contractor know your hygiene and clothing rules?They were on the screen at sign in and were accepted by name. The acceptance and the exact wording are stored with the visit.
- Who was on site on the day of this complaint?A list filtered to that day, exported to a file the auditor can keep.
- What happens at goods in when reception is not staffed?The kiosk still captures the arrival and tells the host by name in Microsoft Teams or Slack, so the record does not depend on somebody being at the desk.
See the sign in
A visitor signs in, and the roll call it feeds, in 100 seconds
The sign in that records the accepted declaration is the same one that puts the visitor on the fire roll call. One action at the door, two records.
The player loads from YouTube only when you press play. Nothing is sent to Google before that. What happens when you do.
Before you ask
The questions packaging sites ask on the first call
Does BRCGS Packaging Materials require an electronic visitor system?
No. Clause 4.4.2 asks for a visitor reporting system and for access to the site by personnel, contractors and visitors to be controlled. It does not specify the technology, and a paper book that is genuinely filled in every time can satisfy it. What paper struggles with is 6.4.2, which asks for a confirmation before somebody is allowed into manufacturing, packing or storage areas, and the auditor’s request for one date last quarter.
Which issue of the Packaging Materials Standard is current?
Issue 7, published by BRCGS on 28 October 2024, with certification audits against it from April 2025. Position Statement P708, dated 12 May 2026 and effective from 10 August 2026, amends clauses 4.4.1 and 4.8.2 to align the Standard with the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements 2024; the 4.4.1 wording on this page is P708’s. The health clause was 6.4.2 in Issue 6 as well, so a site moving from an Issue 6 copy will find it where it was.
Does the kiosk ask the health questions?
No. Clause 6.4.2 offers two routes, a health questionnaire or a confirmation that the visitor is not suffering from any symptoms that could put product safety at risk. The kiosk takes the second: it shows your declaration and records that the visitor accepted it, with the wording and the time. It does not ask for or store an account of anybody’s symptoms, so special category health data stays out of the system. The paper questionnaire template on this site does have questions and a host’s decision, because paper can.
Do delivery drivers have to sign in?
Clause 4.4.2 controls access by personnel, contractors and visitors and does not name drivers separately, so whether a driver who stays in the yard signs in is a site rule, and it is yours to set. A driver who signs in as a visitor accepts the same declaration as everyone else and is on the record and the roll call. A courier who only uses the delivery drop-off is logged as a delivery, with the time and the carrier, and is not treated as a person on site.
Where does a visitor record fit in the product defence plan under 4.4.1?
The clause asks for a threat assessment covering internal and external threats and a plan of systems and procedures that mitigate them. Who can get into the building, and whether you would know they had, is one of the external threats every plan assesses. The record does not write the plan for you; it answers the question the plan raises, who was on site on a given day and who let them in, from a filtered list rather than a handwriting sample.
We also hold the Food Safety Standard at another site. Is this the same clause?
The same idea in different numbering. In the Food Safety Standard Issue 9 the access clause is 4.1.4 and the medical screening clauses are 7.3.2 and 7.3.3; in Packaging Materials Issue 7 they are 4.4.2 and 6.4.2. The record the kiosk keeps is the same at both sites: who was here, when, who they saw, and the exact wording they accepted. What differs is the wording on the screen, which is written per site. The BRCGS Food page on this site covers Issue 9.
Being straight with you
What this does not do
- We are not a certification body, a BRCGS auditor, an Approved Training Partner or a packaging consultancy. This is general information about a published standard, not certification advice.
- The clause wording on this page is taken from BRCGS’s own Issue 7 audit checklist and from Position Statement P708, both free on brcgs.com. We have not read the locked Standard PDF, which is sold on the BRCGS Store. Confirm against your own copy.
- Five clauses out of several hundred. Your hazard and risk analysis, your prerequisite programmes and your traceability tests are still yours, and the auditor spends most of the day on them.
- The kiosk lives at reception, on the office side of the hygiene barrier. It is a consumer tablet in a stand, not a washdown-rated device.
- It records that somebody accepted your declaration and your rules. Whether they then followed them is a supervision question, and no software answers it.
- If your auditor has raised a non-conformance, bring their wording to the call and we will tell you honestly whether this closes it.
Sources
Check any of this yourself
- BRCGS, P701a Auditor Checklist and Site Self-Assessment Tool, Issue 7Version 1, dated 28 October 2024, free to download. BRCGS’s own reproduction of every Issue 7 requirement under its clause number, and the source of the clause wording on this page. Read 26 September 2026.
- BRCGS, P708 Position Statements for Issue 7Version 1, dated 12 May 2026, effective from 10 August 2026; version 1.1, dated 6 October 2026, is the same document rebranded. Amends 4.4.1 and 4.8.2; the 4.4.1 wording above is quoted from it and is unchanged in 1.1. Read 26 September 2026, and read again at 1.1 on 13 October 2026.
- BRCGS, Global Standard Packaging Materials Issue 7, documents and resourcesWhere the Standard itself is sold, and where a site under audit gets its copy. We have not read the locked PDF.
- BRCGS, Packaging Materials Issue 7 now publishedThe publication announcement of 28 October 2024, read on 26 September 2026. BRCGS’s consultation page gave April 2025 as the start of Issue 7 audits. BRCGS rebuilt its website in October 2026 and the item is not on the new site, so this link is to its news index.
General information about a published standard, not certification advice. Clause numbers move between issues; confirm against your own copy of the Standard.
Also asked of sites like yours
The other things somebody may ask you to evidence
Each of these is a page about one standard, one duty or one visitor, written the same way as this one: what it actually asks for, what an iPad at reception records towards it, and where it does not help.
Every standard on one page: the clause numbers, the version and the date each was read, on one printable table.
- GDPR and the visitor book
- CMMC physical security
- List X visitor control
- ITAR visitor log
- Def Stan 05-138 visitor access
- ISO 27001 visitor access
- PCI DSS visitor log
- AEO visitor access control
- CTPAT visitor log
- TISAX visitor management
- TAPA FSR visitor log
- BRCGS visitor control
- BRCGS storage and distribution visitors
- BRCGS unannounced audit
- Visitor control non-conformity
- SALSA visitor control
- IFS Food visitor hygiene
- UFAS feed mill visitor control
- GMP visitors in production areas
- GDP wholesale visitor control
- Fire roll call
- Contractor management
- Construction work in occupied premises
- HSE inspection records
- ISO 45001 contractor control
- Visitor NDA sign in
- Visitor record retention
- What a visitor log must contain
- Standards calendar
- Sign in sheet template
- Visitor health questionnaire template
- Contractor induction template
- Permit to work template
- Hot work permit template
- Fire drill record template
Advise sites on this standard? Referral terms are on one page.
Next step
Tell us what your auditor said about reception
Fifteen minutes on the phone. How many gates, how much goods in traffic, what your declaration says today, and what your last audit raised. We will tell you straight whether a kiosk closes any of it.
Book a 15 minute callNo site visit needed and nothing to install. If it is not a fit we will say so on the call.
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Not the person who signs it off? Send them the one page business case
The platform reference is JK Powell, a Derbyshire metal packaging site whose visitors accept the site rules on the same screen.