What this is
What is a gate in new product development?
What is a gate in new product development?
A gate is a scheduled checkpoint between development stages where a product is either allowed to proceed, held pending actions, or stopped. It exists so that food safety, legality, capability and commercial readiness are tested with evidence rather than assumed because nobody objected. A gate that has never stopped a project has stopped functioning as a gate.
What is a new product development gate review?
It is the review used in KnowQuality that runs at each gate — concept, feasibility, development, pre-launch and post-launch — chaired by technical with production, engineering, commercial, procurement and quality attending. It records who attended, whether hazard analysis, allergen assessment, legal review and shelf life work are complete, and whether the line can make the product at rate. It is built against BRCGS cl.5.1.
How is a gate review different from a production trial?
The gate review is the go or no-go decision meeting; the production trial is the physical evidence one of its questions depends on. A gate can record trial status as planned or complete, but the trial itself — run at normal line speed, by normal operators, for long enough to mean something — happens on the floor, not around a table.
Scope
When is a new product development gate review required?
This review is one step in a larger programme. Using it to record the trial itself, the shelf life study, or the sensory result — rather than referencing them — produces a gate record that duplicates other work and a trial nobody can find.
Use this template when
- A development project is reaching a defined gate — concept, feasibility, development, pre-launch or post-launch — and needs a documented go or no-go decision
- Technical needs to confirm hazard analysis, allergen assessment and legal review are complete enough for the project to proceed
- Production, engineering and commercial need their objections captured before the point where nothing can be changed
- A previous gate was skipped and the project needs that fact on record before it reaches launch
- A linked record needs this one to exist: change control, HACCP, or a production trial reference back to a specific gate decision
Do not use it for
- Production Trial Record, which records the physical trial run itself — line speed, yield, changeover — rather than the decision to hold or approve one
- Shelf Life Study Record, which records the study that establishes or extends a shelf life, covering storage conditions, test points and criteria
- Sensory Evaluation Record, which records a structured taste, smell and appearance assessment against a reference standard
- Artwork Approval Record, which records sign-off on a specific piece of packaging artwork rather than the wider gate decision that artwork sign-off feeds into
- Anything outside KnowQuality, which belongs in the workspace that owns that process
Compliance mapping
Which BRCGS cl.5.1 requirements does this satisfy?
Every requirement below sits under BRCGS cl.5.1, the level this template is built against, whether it touches food safety, capability or the gate decision itself.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | Each stage of development is reviewed against food safety, legality, quality and commercial criteria before the project proceeds | Gate decision |
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | Technical function is represented at the review with authority to hold or stop the project | Attendance |
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | Hazard analysis and the HACCP plan are reviewed and updated for any new process or ingredient before launch | Food safety and legality |
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | Any new allergen introduced to the site is identified and its segregation assessed before the product is committed to the line | Food safety and legality |
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | Label and marketing claims are legally reviewed and substantiated before launch | Food safety and legality |
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | Manufacturing capability, including a completed production trial, is confirmed before a launch date is agreed | Capability |
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | The gate produces a documented decision — proceed, proceed with conditions, hold or stop — with any conditions recorded | Gate decision |
| BRCGS cl.5.1 | Site identity and reviewer are captured against the record so the decision is traceable | Header |
What it does not cover
- Production Present answered Yes without a name anywhere else on the record, which leaves no way to check who actually attended if the decision is challenged later.
- Gate Decision recorded as Proceed while Hazard Analysis Completed is still Partly, which lets a food safety gap ride through on a commercial timetable.
- Any Gate Previously Skipped left blank on a pre-launch record, which hides the one field designed to catch a project that has already bypassed a checkpoint.
- New Allergen Introduced To Site marked Yes, not segregated with no linked change control record, which means a site-wide allergen change is proceeding without the assessment change control exists to force.
- Second Signature left blank on a Closed record, which means the two person accountability the template is built around was never actually applied.
Global
New Product Development Gate Review requirements by country
BRCGS is retailer-driven rather than statute-driven, so its reach depends on who you supply and where the product carries claims, not on where the site sits.
BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety
Major UK grocery retailers require BRCGS certification as a condition of listing, and their technical auditors sample gate review records first because it is where every other control is supposed to converge.
A gate review that cannot show attendance, hazard sign-off and a documented decision is a certification finding waiting to happen, independent of whether the product itself is safe.
Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers
The legality and claims check inside the gate review is where EU allergen labelling and nutrition declaration requirements actually get tested before print, not at the point artwork is approved.
Getting Claims Substantiated or Legal Review Completed wrong at this gate turns into a full pack reprint after launch, once market surveillance or a customer complaint catches it.
GFSI Benchmarking Requirements
Because BRCGS is GFSI-recognised, gate review evidence produced under it is often accepted by customers auditing against a different recognised scheme in North America or Asia-Pacific.
A thin gate record undermines that portability: a customer auditing under a different scheme has nothing to cross-reference and falls back to auditing the site from scratch.
How to complete it
How to complete a new product development gate review, step by step
Filling in every field is the easy part. The judgement calls below are the ones that decide whether the record would survive a customer or certification audit.
A gate marked Complete with Procurement Present as No is defensible if procurement genuinely has nothing to contribute at that stage; the same answer at a gate involving a new raw material supplier is not, and the record does not distinguish the two automatically.
Conditions To Proceed is a free text field with no required linkage back to an action or CAPA record. Deciding whether a condition needs its own tracked action, or whether the text field is enough, is a judgement the chair has to make deliberately rather than by default.
Any Gate Previously Skipped scores zero regardless of which gate was skipped or why. Treating a skipped concept-stage review the same as a skipped pre-launch review is a simplification the template makes on your behalf, worth overriding in the narrative fields when the two are not equivalent.
Shelf Life Study Planned Or Complete accepts Planned at any gate, including pre-launch. Whether a launch date should be agreed while that study is still only planned, rather than complete, is a capability judgement the template surfaces but does not make for you.
What auditors find
Most common new product development gate review findings
These are the patterns that show up when gate reviews are audited after the fact, not hypothetical risks.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Gate decisions recorded as Proceed on the same date the project's launch date was already published internally, indicating the review ratified a decision made earlier. | BRCGS cl.5.1 | Require the gate review date to precede any internally communicated launch commitment, and hold the chair accountable for that sequencing. |
| Concept-stage gates run without production or engineering present, so line capability concerns surface for the first time at pre-launch. | BRCGS cl.5.1 | Make Production Present and Engineering Present required from the concept gate onward, not just later stages, so objections are cheap when they are raised early. |
| Allergen fields answered Yes, segregated with no corresponding entry in the site's cleaning or changeover documentation. | BRCGS cl.5.1 | Cross-check New Allergen Introduced To Site against the site's allergen risk assessment before the gate closes, not after. |
| Trial Record ID left blank on records where Trial Completed is answered Yes. | BRCGS cl.5.1 | Make Trial Record ID required whenever Trial Completed is Yes so the gate decision can be traced to physical evidence. |
| Multiple consecutive gates for the same project show Result Band as Pass despite Items Failed being greater than zero. | BRCGS cl.5.1 | Tie Result Band calculation to Items Failed directly rather than allowing a manual override at submission. |
| Second Signature consistently applied by the same individual who provided the first, defeating the two person control. | BRCGS cl.5.1 | Enforce that Chair and Technical Manager cannot be the same user account on a single record. |
Case in point
Case in point: the gate that proceeded on a verbal allergen assessment
A site introduced a new sauce line at the development gate with New Allergen Introduced To Site marked Yes, segregated, based on a verbal assurance from the supplier's technical contact rather than a written assessment. The gate proceeded on schedule because every other field showed green.
Three months after launch, a customer complaint traced a trace-allergen contamination to a shared changeover step that had never been formally assessed for the new allergen. The gate record showed a Proceed decision with no linked change control reference, so the investigation had nothing to reconstruct except the memory of the people who were in the room.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
6 sections
- Reference
- QUA-099
- Archetype
- Review
- Record ID
- NPD-2026-000
- Scoring
- Gates passed
- Direction
- High is good
- Singleton
- Yes
- Basis
- BRCGS cl.5.1
- Links
- Links Change control, HACCP, Trials
- Tags
- Development
- Sections
- 6
- Fields
- 54
- Follow up fields
- 4
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 4
Header
10 fieldsReview ID*
Auto sequence. Format NPD-2026-000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Completed By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Gates Exist To Be Failed
A gate that has never stopped a project is not a gate. Products that skip gates arrive on the line with problems only production can see, at the point where nothing can be changed.
Project Name*
Gate*
Concept, feasibility, development, pre-launch, or post launch review.
Chair*
Attendance
6 fieldsTechnical Present*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Production Present*
The people who will have to make it. Their objections at concept stage are free.
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Engineering Present*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Commercial Present*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Procurement Present
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Quality Present*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Food safety and legality
9 fieldsHazard Analysis Completed*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
New Hazards Identified*
- None3 pts
- Some, controlled2 pts
- Some, uncontrolled0 pts
HACCP Plan Updated Or Confirmed*
- Yes3 pts
- Pending1 pt
- No0 pts
Allergen Profile Assessed*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
New Allergen Introduced To Site*
One new allergen changes cleaning, changeover and labelling across every product on that line.
- No3 pts
- Yes, segregated1 pt
- Yes, not segregated0 pts
Segregation Feasible
- Yes3 pts
- Marginal1 pt
- No0 pts
Legal Review Completed*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Claims Substantiated*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Shelf Life Study Planned Or Complete*
- Complete3 pts
- Planned2 pts
- Neither0 pts
Capability
9 fieldsLine Can Make It At Rate*
- Yes3 pts
- Marginal1 pt
- No0 pts
Equipment Change Required*
- No3 pts
- Minor1 pt
- Major0 pts
Capital Approved
- Yes3 pts
- Pending1 pt
- No0 pts
Trial Completed*
- Yes3 pts
- Planned1 pt
- No0 pts
Trial Record ID
Links to QUA-100 Trial ID
Supplier Approval Complete*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Specification Written*
- Yes3 pts
- Draft1 pt
- No0 pts
Artwork Approved*
- Yes3 pts
- In progress1 pt
- No0 pts
Training Requirement Identified*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Gate decision
7 fieldsGate Decision*
- Proceed3 pts
- Proceed with conditions2 pts
- Hold pending actions1 pt
- Stop0 pts
Conditions To Proceed
Next Gate Date
Any Gate Previously Skipped*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Launch Date Agreed
Change Involved
Anything that is not a like for like replacement needs change control.
MOC ID
Format MOC-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-020 MOC ID
Result
13 fieldsItems Assessed*
Excludes anything marked N/A.
Items Failed*
Score Percent*
Calculated on submission. High is good. N/A items leave the denominator.
Result Band*
- Pass3 pts
- Caution1 pt
- Fail0 pts
Completeness Percent*
How much of the template was actually answered. A high score on a half completed form is not a high score.
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Chair*
Signature*
Technical Manager*
Second Signature*
QUA-099 · record IDs look like NPD-2026-000 · Links Change control, HACCP, Trials
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
Chasing five functions for attendance, checking the trial reference exists, and catching a gate that quietly proceeded without technical sign-off is the work that actually slips.
Holds the gate review register against every active development project, flags a gate proceeding without technical or production present, and keeps the trial and change control references live rather than orphaned text fields.
Cross-checks the hazard analysis and allergen fields raised at the gate against the site's live risk assessments, so a Yes, segregated answer has something behind it before the gate closes.
Picks up a Yes on Training Requirement Identified and turns it into a tracked training record and completion date, instead of leaving it as a checkbox nobody follows up.
Coordinates the crew across the gate, rolls attendance and readiness into one view before the meeting starts, and holds every write for your approval before it touches the record.
This template lives in KnowQuality — quality and food safety. HACCP, nonconformance, traceability, laboratory and customer complaints.
Meet KnowQuality→Glossary
New Product Development Gate Review definitions and key terms
- Gate
- A scheduled checkpoint in product development where the project is reviewed and either allowed to proceed, held, or stopped.
- HACCP plan
- The documented hazard analysis and critical control point system for a process, updated whenever a new product or process introduces a new hazard.
- Segregation
- Physical or procedural separation of an allergen or material to prevent cross-contact with products that do not carry it.
- Change control (MOC)
- The formal process of assessing and authorising any change to a product, process or site before it is implemented, distinct from a like-for-like replacement.
- Singleton template
- A template designed to hold one continuing record per workspace, updated as it evolves, rather than a fresh record for every occurrence.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about new product development gate review
What is the new product development gate review template based on?+
It is built against BRCGS cl.5.1, the clause governing structured review of product development, formulation and reformulation projects before they proceed to the next stage.
What sections does the new product development gate review contain?+
There are 6 sections: Header, Attendance, Food safety and legality, Capability, Gate decision, Result. Together they hold 54 fields, 41 of which are required.
How many gate review records should a project have?+
One per gate the project passes through — concept, feasibility, development, pre-launch and post-launch — so a single project typically generates several linked records over its life, each one referencing the project name.
Which programme does the gate review belong to?+
It is part of Labelling and Packaging, the leading cause of recalls caught by a two person check at every changeover, because label and artwork approval status is one of the things this gate checks before launch.
How is a gate review scored?+
Scoring is gates passed, where high is good. The score rolls up attendance, food safety and legality readiness, and capability into one figure, but the Gate Decision field is the actual output that matters.
Can the gate review template be changed?+
Yes. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the link to the production trial record and change control comes with it. Most teams install it as it is, run it for a development cycle, then adjust which fields are required at which gate.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Labelling and Packaging
Product and SKU Register
Holds every product and pack format you make, with its specification, allergens, shelf life and customer
Label Verification Record
Verifies that the label on the line matches the specification for that product, covering allergens, claims, dates and barcodes
Artwork Approval Record
Records approval of new or amended artwork before it is printed, with each checker named
Date Coding Verification
Verifies date and batch coding is present, legible, correct and in the right position
Packaging Material Inspection
Inspects incoming packaging for damage, contamination, correct print and food contact compliance
Packaging Reconciliation Record
Reconciles packaging and label quantities issued, used and returned at the end of a run
More in Shelf Life
Shelf Life Study Record
Records the study that establishes or extends a shelf life, covering storage conditions, test points and criteria
Challenge Test Record
Records a deliberate inoculation study to confirm the product controls the organism of concern across its life
Sensory Evaluation Record
Records a structured taste, smell and appearance assessment against a reference standard
Production Trial Record
Records a trial run of a new or changed product on the real line, with what worked and what did not
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety, Issue 9 — Clause 5.1, Product Development, Formulation and Reformulation
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 — Provision of Food Information to Consumers
- GFSI Benchmarking Requirements, Version 2020.1
- Codex Alimentarius CXC 1-1969 — General Principles of Food Hygiene
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.