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BRCGS Storage and Distribution Issue 4

BRCGS storage and distribution visitors: what Issue 4 asks you to show at the gate

A warehouse’s visitors arrive at the dock, not at reception, and the clause your auditor has in mind when they ask about the book is 4.2.2, one sentence asking for controlled access and a visitor reporting system. This page quotes the five clauses of Issue 4 that reach your gate, from BRCGS’s own documents, and says what an iPad at the door records towards each of them, drivers included.

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What the Standard asks

Three clauses about the gate, and two about the people who come through it

Issue 4 puts visitors in two places: section 4.2, site security and product defence, where the visitor reporting system lives and where drivers are named, and section 8.2, personal hygiene, where a visitor is held to the same rules as your own staff before they go into a storage area.

Clause 4.2.2

Access controlled, and a visitor reporting system

Access to the site by employees, contractors and visitors shall be controlled and a visitor reporting system shall be in place.

One sentence, and the one your gatehouse book is being asked to satisfy. It does not say what the system is made of. It says access is controlled and a system exists, and the auditor’s way of testing both is to ask for a date and see how long the answer takes.

Clause 4.2.4

Drivers, named

Contractors and visitors, including drivers, shall be made aware of all procedures for access to premises and the requirements of the areas they are visiting, with special reference to hazards and potential product contamination. Contractors working in product storage areas shall be the responsibility of a nominated person.

The clause that makes this page a warehouse page rather than a food page. A driver who walks from the dock to the office is inside it, and made aware means told before they go in, in a way you can show. The nominated person for a contractor in the racking is the host on the record.

Clause 4.2.3

Staff who question a face they do not know

The company shall have documented site security procedures. Staff shall be trained in the site security procedures and encouraged to question or report unidentified or unknown visitors.

Half of this is a procedure and a training record. The other half is practical: a warehouse operative can only question an unknown visitor if a known one is identifiable, which is what a printed badge with a name, a host and a date is for.

Clause 8.2.7

Health confirmation before storage areas

Where permitted by law, visitors and contractors shall be required to fill in a health questionnaire or otherwise confirm that they are not suffering from any symptoms which may put product safety at risk, prior to being allowed into 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 8.2 and clause 8.2.2

Hygiene rules that reach visitors

The site’s personal hygiene standards shall be documented and adopted by all personnel, including agency staff and visitors to the location, with due regard to the risk of product contamination. The requirements for personal hygiene shall be communicated to all personnel, agency staff, contractors and visitors. Compliance with the requirements shall be checked regularly.

The statement of intent puts visitors inside the hygiene standards and 8.2.2 asks for the requirements to be communicated to them. Communicated is the word that makes a record worth keeping: for a contractor here for one afternoon, the moment they were told is the only evidence there is.

Quoted from BRCGS’s Site Self-Assessment Tool for the Global Standard Storage and Distribution Issue 4 (SD401, version 4, 6 May 2021), read on 26 September 2026. BRCGS says audits to Issue 4 started on 1 May 2021. Clause 4.2.1, above these, asks for the threat assessment that the rest of section 4.2 serves. Nothing in the Standard tells you to buy anything: a paper book that is genuinely filled in every time, at every door a driver uses, can satisfy 4.2.2. What paper struggles with is the second door, the sign out, and 8.2.7, a confirmation that has to happen before entry.

At the door

What the kiosk records towards each clause

The same iPad every site gets, at the gatehouse or the dock office as readily as at reception. A name and a time is a log; a name, a vehicle, a time and an accepted set of access procedures is what 4.2.4 asks you to show.

Drivers who come beyond the dock

A driver who signs in on the kiosk gives their name, their company, the person they have come to see and their vehicle registration, and accepts your access procedures before the sign in completes. That is 4.2.4’s made aware, with the time. A courier who only uses the delivery drop-off is logged as a delivery, with the carrier and the time, and is not treated as a person on site.

The confirmation 8.2.7 asks for, accepted by name

Your health declaration and hygiene rules, in your own wording, on the iPad at sign in. The visitor reads it and accepts it, 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.

The visitor reporting system, on the day

Name, company, host, vehicle, 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’s question about a Tuesday becomes a list of who was on site that Tuesday, drivers included where they signed in.

A roll call that reaches the yard

Everyone signed in on the kiosk is on a live list readable from any phone at the assembly point, and a warehouse’s missing person is most often a driver nobody put on a list. Most sites put a second unit at the gatehouse or the dock office rather than sending drivers to reception.

The visitor history screen filtered to a single day, listing six visitors with their company, host, and sign in and sign out times, beside an Export CSV button
Who was on site on the day of a complaint, filtered to that day and exportable.

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 fullA dock office with nobody in itMore than one depotThe same page for the Food Safety Standard, Issue 9The same page for Packaging Materials, Issue 7If the auditor arrives unannounced, what BRCGS079 says about the first 30 minutesAfter an audit: a visitor control non-conformity, and the days to answer itThe same page for a UFAS feed mill, drivers includedOur security and sub-processors

On the day

Five things a BRCGS auditor asks at the gate, 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 walking to the gatehouse for the 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 are drivers made aware of your access procedures?The procedures are on the screen at sign in, in your wording, and each driver who signed in accepted them by name with the time. Drivers who stay in the cab are your site rule, and the page says so.
  • How do visitors and contractors confirm they are free of symptoms before storage areas?The declaration on the kiosk and the record of each person who accepted it, with the wording and the time.
  • Who was on site on the day of this complaint?A list filtered to that day, exported to a file the auditor can keep.
  • How would an operative know somebody on the floor should not be there?With the badge module, a printed badge with the name, the host, the date and a colour band for clearance. Without it, the live on site list on any phone.

See the sign in

A visitor signs in, and the roll call it feeds, in 100 seconds

The sign in that records the accepted procedures 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 warehouses ask on the first call

Does BRCGS Storage and Distribution require an electronic visitor system?

No. Clause 4.2.2 asks for access to be controlled and for a visitor reporting system to be in place. It does not specify the technology, and a paper book that is genuinely filled in every time, at every entrance a driver uses, can satisfy it. What paper struggles with is the second entrance, the sign out, and 8.2.7’s confirmation before entry.

Which issue of the Storage and Distribution Standard is current?

Issue 4, published in 2020. BRCGS’s own frequently asked questions say audits to Issue 4 started on 1 May 2021 and that a site can no longer be audited to Issue 3. The clause numbers on this page are Issue 4’s, from BRCGS’s self-assessment tool for it. Check brcgs.com for anything newer before you plan around a number.

Do delivery drivers have to sign in?

Clause 4.2.4 names drivers among the people who must be made aware of your access procedures, so a driver who comes beyond the dock is inside the clause. Whether a driver who never leaves the cab signs in is a site rule, and it is yours to set. On the kiosk a driver who signs in gives a vehicle registration and accepts your procedures like any visitor; a courier who only uses the delivery drop-off is logged as a delivery and is not a person on the record or the roll call.

Does the kiosk ask the health questions?

No. Clause 8.2.7 offers two routes, a health questionnaire or a confirmation that the visitor is not suffering from 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.

Does 4.2.3 mean our staff need training on the kiosk?

No. The clause is about your site security procedures and about staff being encouraged to question or report unknown visitors. The training record is yours. What the kiosk adds is that a known visitor is identifiable: with the badge module, a printed badge with the name, the host and the date; without it, the live on site list that any member of staff can open on a phone.

We run several depots. Is the record per site?

Each site has its own kiosk under its own name, grouped as one company, with one retention period for the company and an area manager role that sees visitors across all of them. The record filters by site. The multi-site page on this site says how many sites one engineer can serve and what it costs per site.

Being straight with you

What this does not do

  • We are not a certification body, a BRCGS auditor, an Approved Training Partner or a logistics 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 4 self-assessment tool, 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 the Standard. Your hazard and risk analysis, your temperature control, your vehicle standards and your traceability tests are still yours, and the auditor spends most of the day on them.
  • The kiosk does not open a barrier, a dock door or a gate, and it does not record vehicles that never stop. A driver is on the record when a person signs in.
  • It records that somebody accepted your procedures and your declaration. 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

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.

Advise sites on this standard? Referral terms are on one page.

Next step

Tell us what your auditor said about the gate

Fifteen minutes on the phone. How many entrances drivers use, whether the dock office is staffed, what your procedures say today, and what your last audit raised. We will tell you straight whether a kiosk closes any of it.

Book a 15 minute call

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