IFS Announce New Office in North America

Office will have responsibility for IFS business in the Americas

Berlin, Germany/St. Louis, USA – February 7, 2010 – International Featured Standards (IFS) announced the opening of a new office in North America that will support all IFS efforts in North, Central, and South America. The announcement comes as part of IFS initiatives at the Global Food Safety Conference hosted in Washington, DC February 3-5, 2010.

“Our new office in St. Louis, Missouri (USA) will be the foundation of all IFS efforts in the Americas,” said Stephan Tromp, IFS Managing Director. “We are investing in the North American market because as a global food safety standard our presence and activities in this region are very important. They are in line with IFS efforts to be a truly global standard. We will be able to support a large part of the global food market with the benefits of the IFS Food safety standard from St. Louis.”

In addition to announcing the new office in St. Louis, IFS introduced George Gansner to the industry’s key retailers and suppliers at the Conference. Mr. Gansner will be the main contact for North, Central, and South America for IFS activities.

“I’m very happy to be a part of IFS and look forward to establishing key business relationships as well as building on what IFS already certifies under GFSI in the Americas,” commented George Gansner. “Of course, my primary concern is developing the awareness of the strong benefits IFS can provide retailers and their suppliers. IFS is a leader in global food safety – not just in Europe - and as we become more known to the American market we will be able to make a big impact to our customer’s bottom line.”

IFS Office St. Louis
1610 Des Peres Road, Suite 150
St. Louis, MO 63131
Phone: 1  314-686-4610
Fax: 1 314-686-4602
[email protected]

Inquiries about IFS should be directed at the current time to either:

George Gansner (St. Louis, MO USA), [email protected], 314.753.6786 or Kathrin Schmechel (Berlin, Germany),  [email protected],  011.49.30.726.250.13

About IFS: International Featured Standards (IFS) is an umbrella brand for globally recognized standards in Food, Logistics, Household and Personal Care (HPC), Broker, and Cash & Carry/Wholesale developed by the associated members of the German retail federation – Hauptverband des Deutschen Einzelhandels (HDE) – and of its French counterpart – Fédération des Entreprises du Commerce et de la Distribution (FCD), along with input from retailers in Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, and Austria.

IFS Food is a global uniform quality assurance and food safety Standard accepted under the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). The Standard, which is used worldwide, is intended to allow the assessment of suppliers’ food safety and quality systems in accordance with a uniform approach and applies to all the post-farm gate stages of food processing. More than 12,000 IFS Food audits were performed in 2009. More information about IFS can be found at www.ifs-certification.com.

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