Buying certified organic.

The core problem.

Organic certification certifies a producer against a standard, and the standard that matters is the one your destination market accepts. Those are frequently different documents.

So the question to a supplier is never whether they are organic. It is which standard, which certifier, what scope, and what the certificate number is.

Then you check that certifier is recognised where you sell. This is a fifteen minute exercise that prevents a container of product you cannot legally describe the way you planned to.

What a certificate actually covers.

Five things to read on the document itself, in the order they cause problems.

Scope

Named crops, named land and named operations. A farm certified for coffee is not certified for the pepper growing next to it.

The operator

Certification attaches to a business and a site. A trader buying certified material needs their own certification to sell it as organic.

The chain

Every party who handles the product between the farm and the label usually has to be certified. A certified farm and an uncertified processor breaks it.

Validity

Certificates expire and get suspended. Check the date and check the scope on every shipment rather than filing the first one.

Transaction documents

Most systems require a document tied to the specific consignment rather than only the annual certificate.

The Indonesian reality.

A great deal of Indonesian smallholder production is grown without synthetic inputs and is not certified, because certification costs money and requires records that smallholders do not keep.

That product is not organic in the legal sense, and saying so on a label in a regulated market is an offence. It can still be an excellent product with a true story that avoids the regulated word.

Group certification exists and it is how most Indonesian organic supply works, with an internal control system inside a cooperative. Ask how the internal system is run, because that is where the scheme is strong or weak.

Practical steps.

Ask for the certificate, the number, the scope and the certifier's name before discussing price.

Verify the certifier is accepted for your market, and verify the certificate with the issuing body rather than by looking at the file you were sent.

Establish who in the chain needs to be certified on your side, because in most systems the importer does too.

Agree the consignment-level documentation before shipment, since it generally cannot be issued retrospectively.

Questions buyers ask.

Read next.

• Which sustainability claims you can defend

  Regulators now test environmental claims. What each common one needs behind it, and which to avoid entirely.

• Why Indonesian chains have so many hands

  Farms, collectors, mills, exporters. What that structure does to quality, price and traceability, and how to work with it.

• Buying through a co-operative

  The only practical way to shorten an agricultural chain, and the trade-offs. What a co-operative can and cannot do.

• Labelling for your market

  Printed in Indonesia and judged in your country. What has to appear, and who carries the obligation.

• Organic certification

  European and American organic rules are separate systems with separate paperwork. Why one certificate rarely covers both markets.

• EU organic certificate of inspection

  Organic goods entering the EU need an electronic certificate of inspection in TRACES. Without one the consignment is not released at the port.

• JAS organic

  Organic claims in Japan run through the Japanese standard, and EU or US organic certification does not automatically carry across.

• What certified means

  Certificates prove a narrow thing about a specific scope on a date. How to read one properly.