A practical look at BRCGS colour-coding requirements and how to ensure audit success across your food production site.

Effective colour-coding is more than just a visual aid. It’s an essential tool for preventing cross-contamination, protecting consumers, and demonstrating audit compliance. 

In this guide, we’ll highlight relevant clauses from Issue 9 of the BRCGS Global Food Safety Standard. We’ll also explain how clear systems, smart storage solutions, visual management, and engaged employees can keep your food production site safe and audit-ready. 

Audit Expectations for Colour-Coding 

Colour-coding plays an important role in supporting segregation, preventing cross contamination, and demonstrating control during audits.  

It is referenced throughout Issue 9 of the BRCGS Global Food Safety Standard, presented as an effective and widely accepted method of compliance across multiple clauses. 

Understanding where and how colour-coding fits into these requirements can help sites implement systems that are both practical and audit-ready. 

Colour-Coding and Foreign Body Control (Clause 4.9.4) 

In areas where products are packed into glass or other brittle containers, the control of breakages is critical. Clause 4.9.4.2 requires sites to have robust systems in place to manage breakages between inspection and closure. As part of this, cleaning equipment used to remove breakages must be: 

  • Dedicated for this specific purpose  
  • Clearly identifiable (for example, through colour-coding)  
  • Stored separately from other cleaning equipment  

In practice, this often means introducing a distinct colour-coded set of tools such as dedicated spill kits that are only used for glass or brittle plastic incidents. 

This approach makes it immediately clear to operatives which equipment should be used in the event of a breakage, helping to prevent the accidental use of general cleaning tools and reducing the risk of cross contamination. 

Example of a glass and hard plastic spill kit

Colour-Coded Spill Kits

  • Support colour-coding and segregation.
  • Include essential cleaning equipment.
  • Available in up to 11 colours: blue, red, yellow, green, white, black, orange, purple, grey, brown and pink.
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Colour-Coding in Cleaning and Hygiene (Clause 4.11.6) 

Cleaning equipment must be effectively managed to prevent it from becoming a source of contamination. Clause 4.11.6 states that cleaning tools should be: 

  • Hygienically designed and fit for purpose  
  • Suitably identified for their intended use (e.g. colour-coded or labelled)  
  • Cleaned and stored in a hygienic manner  

Colour-coding is commonly used to differentiate equipment by area, task, or risk level. For example, separate colours may be assigned to low and high-care areas, or to different types of cleaning activities, such as allergen-related cleaning, the cleaning of food prep areas, and drain cleaning. 

This helps to ensure that equipment is not inadvertently transferred between areas or applications, reducing the risk of cross contamination and demonstrating clear, visual control to auditors. 

Shadow board storage solutions further support compliance with Clause 4.11.6 as they reinforce colour-coding and ensure equipment is stored in a hygienic manner. By giving each item a clearly defined home, shadow boards help prevent cross-use, reduce the risk of equipment damage, and make it immediately obvious when items are missing or incorrectly stored. 

Example of a colour-coded shadow board

Shadow Board Storage Solutions

  • Customised boards, delivered in 5-7 working days.
  • Five hassle-free mounting methods.
  • Supplied with fully certified food-grade equipment in up to 11 distinct colours.
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PPE and Colour-Coding Requirements (Clauses 7.2.3 and 7.4.5)

Colour is also tied to personal protective equipment (PPE). It is used to improve visibility and contamination control. The use of a highly visible colour such as blue, which rarely occurs naturally in food, makes it easier to identify foreign bodies quickly if they find their way into your product.  

Clause 7.2.3

Clause 7.2.3 requires that any cuts or grazes are covered with a plaster that is: 

  • A distinctive colour (preferably blue)  
  • Different from the product colour  
  • Metal detectable  

Clause 7.4.5

Similarly, Clause 7.4.5 specifies that disposable gloves should be: 

  • Suitable for food use  
  • Of a distinctive colour (blue where possible)  
  • Intact and non-shedding  
Example of a blue metal detectable plaster

Metal Detectable Plasters

  • Highly visible and metal detectable to reduce the risk of a foreign body incident.
  • Designed to meet the needs of the food manufacturing and processing sector.
  • Assorted sizes to accommodate various wound types.
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Colour-Coding to Support Segregation in High-Risk and High-Care Areas (Section 8.3) 

In high-risk and high-care environments, segregation controls are especially important. Colour-coding is widely used to meet these requirements by providing a simple, visual way to confirm that tools and equipment belong in a specific zone. 

Clause 8.3.1

Clause 8.3.1 requires that maintenance tools and equipment are, wherever possible: 

  • Dedicated to the area  
  • Retained within that area  

Clause 8.3.3

Clause 8.3.3 further states that portable equipment must either be: 

  • Visually distinctive and dedicated to the area, or  
  • Subject to validated cleaning procedures before use  

Employee Engagement and Colour-Coding

Visual Management

Even the most well-designed colour-coding system will only be effective if it is clearly understood by the teams working across your site. 

Visual management plays an important role in supporting this. Site maps, signage, and highly visual display boards can be used to reinforce colour-coded zones, equipment segregation, and cleaning responsibilities, making expectations easy to understand at a glance. 

Ongoing Training

Ongoing training is also essential, ensuring operatives not only know what to do, but also why it matters. Explaining the purpose behind colour-coding systems helps build engagement and accountability. When staff understand that effective segregation supports product integrity, protects brand reputation, and underpins business success, they are more likely to follow procedures correctly. 

Most importantly, training should reinforce the role each operative plays in protecting consumers, particularly vulnerable individuals who could be seriously impacted by allergen cross-contamination or the presence of foreign bodies in food products. 

Example of a visual management board showing a colour-coded system

Visual Management

  • Manufactured using food-safe materials that won't peel.
  • Four material options: flexible magnetic, flexible self-adhesive vinyl, rigid aluminium composite, and rigid magnetic composite.
  • Four mounting options: fixed-to-wall, magnetic-to-wall, freestanding frame, and mobile frame.
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What Auditors Are Looking For 

During an audit, colour-coding systems are often assessed not just on their presence, but on how effectively they are implemented. Auditors will typically look for: 

  • Clear and consistent colour-coding rules across the site  
  • Evidence that staff understand and follow the system  
  • Appropriate segregation of equipment by area or task  
  • Correct storage and maintenance of colour-coded tools  
  • Alignment between documented procedures and actual practice  

Where colour-coding is poorly defined, inconsistently applied, or not understood by staff, this can lead to non-conformances. In contrast, a well-designed colour-coding system provides immediate visual assurance that controls are in place. 

By implementing clear colour-coding systems and supporting them with effective visual management and training, your site can demonstrate control during upcoming audits. 

If you have any questions about colour-coding solutions or would like support in improving compliance across your site, contact our team on 01473 461 800 or email sales@klipspringer.com. Alternatively, fill out the form below.

If you have any questions about colour-coding solutions or would like support in improving compliance across your site, share your details below and we will be in touch.