It is the first question in almost every conversation, and it deserves a serious answer rather than an invented range. Cost and timeline do not depend on company size, but on four specific variables.
1. How many products and how many sites
Certifying three products on one line is not the same as certifying forty across two factories. Audit work scales with the number of facilities and the variety of processes, not with turnover.
2. The state of your documentation
By far the variable that moves the timeline most. A company with technical data sheets and supplier certificates up to date can complete the process in a few months. One that has to chase the breakdown of twenty compound raw materials can take three times as long — and that time depends neither on us nor on you, but on your suppliers.
3. Which markets you want to reach
Certifying for the internal European market is not the same as for Indonesia, Malaysia or the Gulf. Each destination adds requirements and, in some cases, extra verifications. Defining the markets from the outset avoids rework.
4. Whether meat is involved
Slaughter adds a control level of its own: supervision, requirements on the slaughterman and abattoir verifications. It is the case with the heaviest audit load.
A realistic timeline
The process has six steps — application, contract, preliminary audit, audit, decision and issue — and the part that stretches is almost never the audit: it is the preparation beforehand. That is why we insist so much on the ingredient inventory before signing anything.
Once issued, the certificate is not permanent: there are periodic surveillance audits, and any change of formulation or supplier must be notified.
How to get a real figure
Any price given without seeing your file is a blind estimate. Send us the list of products to certify, the number of facilities and the destination markets, and we will give you a concrete quotation and a realistic timeline.