BRC stands for 'British Retail Consortium', a cooperative of the largest retail organisations in the United Kingdom. This organisation has established guidelines that a food producer must fulfil to be permitted to supply the large English supermarkets. These regulations go further than an HACCP plan alone. For example, there are expanded regulations for the vicinity of the plant and the requirements concerning organisation and communication.
The BRC standard has been developed because retailers impose different requirements on suppliers than general customers do.
IFS is the German/French equivalent of BRC.