Doug, There has been some interesting commentary recently about third party audits and the role of audits in general. As CEO of one of the largest auditing firms in North America, I feel compelled to share a few thoughts. Firstly, I would say that some of the auditors and the CB's they work for are very deserving of the criticism, and you don't need to be an expert to figure out that some of the things they do make no sense. Sending in auditors who have inadequate training and credentials, doing audits that clearly lack rigor, are too short (the Primus audit at Jensen Farms was reportedly done in 4 hours), are based on meaningless standards, etc. are all head scratchers. However, to some degree I think you are barking up the wrong tree. There are good and bad players in every industry, and if the major brands, both the producers and the retailers who buy from them are going to rely on third party audits, they should do a whole lot more to ensure that they are setting themselves up for success. In fact, if they really care about what they do, they should consider doing second party audits - but either way, they should pick a standard that makes sense and meets their needs, select an auditing company and auditors who can be trusted to do good work, performance manage them and follow up on their findings with a sense of urgency. That is why I believe that a "high touch, high value" auditing solution is the way to go. If you want an audit you trust, work with people you trust to do good work: its that simple. And, although I have taken heat from people in the industry for my views on this, don't be fooled into believing that the GFSI movement and the concept of "once audited, accepted everywhere" is going to fly without a major overhaul. Nobody can agree on standards, the accreditation process for Certifying Bodies is flawed, the level of execution even under the same scheme varies widely, and on and on. The fact is, there are very few audits performed even under the GFSI scheme that deserve to be "accepted everywhere" - BUT they do exist and there are companies out there that are genuinely committed to doing great audits. The problem of course, is that not everyone wants to sign up for that kind of service. Left to their own devices, most manufacturers will go for the cheapest and easiest way to get certified, and that is where the problem lies. In the final analysis, this is corporate governance issue. Food companies (a generalization of course) seem to obsess over everything else but their commitment to reasonable care, which is a monumental miss. If the Boards of Directors of major food companies are genuinely committed to healthful, nutritious, safe food; they would be far more sophisticated in their approach to understanding and managing the risk down to acceptable levels, they would have a heavy-hitting quality assurance executive reporting directly to the board with the power and budget to get things done and a mandate to build a food safety-centric culture, they would insist on having visibility and control over their supply chains, and they would never blame some crappy third party audit for their failures.