What is my customer going to do with the information I provide?
The information that you provide about each ingredient or material will be used by your customer to complete a vulnerability assessment for each of the materials they purchase. Vulnerability assessments for food fraud are performed to meet the requirements of food safety management systems and to help businesses manage financial risks from food fraud. Your customer will put the your answers into Food Fraud Advisors’ Vulnerability Assessment Tool (BRC Method), which is a quick and easy way to calculate risks and produce auditor-friendly reports.
Why are some of the questions repeated?
The questions are based on recommendations provided by the British Retail Consortium in their document Understanding Vulnerability Assessment (2015) which requires some elements to be repeated.
May I share the Supplier Questionnaire with other businesses?
If your business has purchased a copy of the Vulnerability Assessment Tool, then you may send the Supplier Questionnaire to any business that supplies you with ingredients or materials. If you are a supplier, then you may not share the questionnaire with other businesses or take it with you when you change jobs: the business that provided you with the questionnaire (your customer) owns the licence for the questionnaire. For complete terms and conditions click here.
Why are some of the questions ‘greyed-out’?
Questions 20 – 23 and 26 are greyed-out because they cannot be properly answered by a supplier. The answers to these questions relate only to the business that is performing the vulnerability assessment (the customer). This is because the vulnerability is related to that business’ ability to detect fraud, not their suppliers’ ability to detect it. Customers: if you need to know about your supplier’s ability to detect food fraud in their products, you should ask them to provide you with a full vulnerability assessment that they have complete themselves. They will need to purchase their own copy of the Vulnerability Assessment Tool, the licence rules do not permit you to share it with your suppliers. Suppliers are eligible for a 40% discount. Contact us to request a discount code for your suppliers to use when they purchase the tool.
Is there a telephone number I can call for help and support with the questionnaire?
Please email support@foodfraudadvisors.com with your query, including your preferred contact details and geographical location (for time zone purposes). We will contact you by telephone or Skype or email an answer to you.
Something is not working properly, what should I do?
If there is an error in the spreadsheet please contact us. We want the Vulnerability Assessment Tool and Supplier Questionnaire to be the best they can and value your feedback.
My security settings will not allow me to run macros, is this a problem?
If you wish to use the Supplier Questionnaire you will need to enable macros.
My supplier(s) only have Microsoft Excel 1997 – 2003, will this be a problem?
If your supplier is using Excel 1997 – 2009 (file extension .xls) or Excel for Mac 2000 – 2008 they will not be able to use the questionnaire. You can contact us to request a free copy of a supplier questionnaire that is compatible with older versions of Excel. Alternatively, create a compatible version yourself by performing a ‘Save As’ and choosing ‘Excel 97 – 2003 Workbook’ from the drop down list. You will be shown a compatibility checker window. The compatibility checker lists functions that will be lost if you proceed. These lost functions relate to the look of the spreadsheet and will not prevent the supplier from answering questions: press ‘Continue’ to accept the loss of functions and create a file that your suppliers will be able to use.