What's Inside the Figuro Basic Food Safety System?

What the Basic System Is and Who It's For

The Figuro Basic Food Safety System is a ready-to-use document kit designed for small food businesses that need to get audit-ready without hiring a consultant to write everything from scratch. It costs R3,500 and delivers 17 professionally written, audit-ready DOCX templates plus 5 consultant explainer guides.

It's built for three types of businesses:

• Home-based food businesses that are growing and need to formalise their food safety documentation
• Startups preparing to supply their first retail or wholesale customer
• Established small businesses approaching their first food safety audit and unsure where to start

The Basic System is not an assessment or a certification. It gives you the documents — the HACCP plan templates, the procedure records, the registers — that an auditor will ask to see. You fill them in for your specific operation, and you're ready to be audited.

The 5 Document Groups

All 17 templates are organised into five document groups. Each group covers a distinct area of your food safety management system.

1. Foundation

These are the baseline documents every food safety system requires. They establish your food safety policy, define management responsibilities, and set out how your system is structured. Without these, an auditor has no framework to assess the rest of your documentation.

2. HACCP

The HACCP group contains the core technical documents: your hazard analysis, process flow diagrams, critical control point (CCP) determination records, and monitoring logs. These are the documents that demonstrate you have identified and are controlling the real food safety risks in your process.

3. PRPs (Prerequisite Programmes)

PRPs are the foundational hygiene and operational conditions your facility must maintain before HACCP even begins. The Basic System covers five of the eleven PRPs required at higher certification levels — the five that matter most for small-scale operations (detailed in the next section).

4. Operational Control

These templates cover the day-to-day records that prove your system is running. Think supplier approval records, product specifications, temperature monitoring logs, and non-conformance reports. An auditor will spend significant time on these.

5. Training

You need to be able to show that your staff understand food safety and have been trained. This group includes training registers, competency records, and induction documentation.

The 5 PRPs It Covers — And Why Those Five

Prerequisite Programmes are the hygiene and operational conditions that underpin your entire food safety system. The Basic System covers the five PRPs that are most critical for small food businesses and most commonly assessed at entry-level audits:

• Sanitation and cleaning — procedures and records showing your facility and equipment are cleaned to a defined schedule
• Pest control — documented evidence of a pest management programme, whether in-house or contracted
• Personal hygiene — policies and records covering staff hygiene, illness reporting, and protective clothing
• Allergen management — procedures for identifying, controlling, and communicating allergens in your products
• Traceability — a system for tracking ingredients in and finished products out, so you can execute a product recall if needed

These five PRPs are not the easiest five — they're the five that auditors at GFSI Global Markets and BRCGS Start! level will look at first. Getting these right is what separates a business that passes from one that gets a major non-conformance on day one.

The 4 Standards It Meets

The Basic System is built to satisfy the documentation requirements of four internationally recognised food safety standards.

GFSI Global Markets Programme

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Global Markets Programme is a stepping-stone programme designed for small and developing food businesses. It has two levels — Basic and Intermediate — and is recognised by major retailers worldwide as proof that a supplier is implementing structured food safety. The Basic System aligns with GFSI Global Markets Basic level requirements.

BRCGS Start!

BRCGS (Brand Reputation through Compliance Global Standards) is one of the most widely recognised food safety certification schemes globally. BRCGS Start! is its entry-level programme, designed for businesses that are not yet ready for full BRCGS Food Safety certification but need to demonstrate a credible baseline. The Basic System covers the documentation requirements for BRCGS Start! certification.

FSSC 22000 Development Level

FSSC 22000 is a full GFSI-recognised certification scheme. It has a Development Level pathway for smaller businesses working towards full FSSC 22000 certification. The Basic System gives you the foundational documents that FSSC 22000 Development Level expects to see in place.

SANS 10330

SANS 10330 is South Africa's national HACCP standard. It is the framework that underpins food safety requirements from South African retailers and regulators. The HACCP templates and PRP documentation in the Basic System are structured to align with SANS 10330:2020. Read more in our complete guide to SANS 10330.

How It's Delivered and How to Use It

After purchase, the Basic System is delivered as an instant digital download via email. You receive 17 DOCX files (editable in Microsoft Word or Google Docs) and 5 PDF explainer guides written by a qualified food safety consultant.

The process is straightforward:

• Open each template in your word processor
• Read the accompanying explainer guide for that document group
• Fill in the highlighted fields with information specific to your business, products, and processes
• Save and maintain the completed documents as your live food safety records

The templates are designed to be completed by the business owner — you do not need a food safety consultant to interpret or complete them. The explainer guides walk you through what each document is for and what to write.

Who Should Upgrade to the Intermediate System Instead

The Basic System is the right starting point for most small food businesses. But if you are already supplying major retailers like Woolworths, SPAR, or Shoprite — or if your customer is specifically asking for FSSC 22000 or full BRCGS certification — the Intermediate Food Safety System is the better fit. It covers all 11 PRPs, includes a food safety culture programme, and provides the full operational control cycle that retailer audits require.