A certificate issued by a certification body pursuant to Reg. (EEC) No. 2092/91 is not the only one required of operators wishing to sell their products from organic farming in the UK.

For this reason, ICEA has entered into agreements with Soil Association Certification Limited (hereinafter called SA Cert), which is a UK certification body recognized by the European Union in accordance with Reg. (EEC) No. 2092/91, controlling over 70% of producers in the UK.  Such agreements (Multi-lateral Agreement and Agreement for Sub-contracted Inspection) allow ICEA-certified products access to the UK market.

SA Cert runs two certification programmes for products from organic farming: Symbol Programme and IFOAM-accredited Global Partnership Programme.

In general, an Italian operator (or anyone operating outside the UK) may fall within one of the following cases:

1.      Producer/Processor who sells his products to a SA Cert Licensee (he does not affix his label to his products, but sells them with a certificate issued by ICEA);

2.      SA Cert Licensed Producer/Processor (the labels of his products display SA Cert symbol).  The symbol is granted only if the entire production process, from raw material to final packaging, complies with IFOAM-accredited SA Cert standards.

In both cases, the Italian operator must apply to SA Cert (either directly or through his UK customer), which will send him all the forms that will have to be submitted. The reference site is www.soilassociation.org

On receipt of the application for certification, SA Cert will directly contact ICEA and either request ICEA’s Italian inspectors to visit the operator’s units, in the case of SA Cert Licensed Operator (case 2), or one copy of ICEA’s Inspection Reports written on occasion of previous inspection visits and a specification verification check-list (case 1).

In both cases, the operators subject to the inspection scheme pursuant to Reg. (EEC) No. 2092/91 and also IFOAM-accredited programmes (e.g.: Garanzia AIAB), will benefit from a quicker certification process, as SA Cert’s specific requirements are already covered by IFOAM Standards.

The time required for the completion of the certification process may vary, depending on the characteristics of the enterprise.

For any further detail, please contact Dr. Michela Coli (FO@icea.info).