Standards for Great Britain and Northern Ireland have been updated
Updated standards are now available on our website.
These standards updates are not relevant for Soil Association Certification clients on the following schemes:
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Health and Beauty (SA Health and Beauty standards (not COSMOS) updates will be launched and communicated separately via Beauty News next week)
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Textiles
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Food For Life Served Here
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Forestry
View the summary of changes to standards for Great Britain
View the summary of changes to standards for Northern Ireland
Soil Association have also launched two new standards, detailed below.
New SA Northern Ireland and Great Britain food and drink higher standard
SA GB 6.6.15 and SA NI 6.6.16 critically endangered species
This standard applies to products and ingredients derived from critically endangered species. The intention of this standard is to strengthen assurance that critically endangered species are protected, by aligning SA’s Food & Drink requirements with its Farming standards. The standard specifies that products or ingredients from species listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List may only be used if:
a) They are cultivated and organically grown (not harvested from the wild); or
b) They were organically harvested from the wild and are certified to a standard that the Soil Association recognises for its protection of threatened species. For this purpose, the Soil Association recognises FairWild certification.
If you have any questions about these requirements, please contact equivalence@soilassociation.org.
New SA Northern Ireland farming and growing, and feed processing higher standards
SA NI 3.10.17 and SA NI 9.1.16 the use of propylene glycol and iron dextran 10% is restricted
Soil Association has reviewed the new permission for propylene glycol in the EU organic regulation. Propylene glycol can currently be used as part of a veterinary treatment plan for animal health and welfare on a case-by-case basis within organic systems, and we believe that this is the right approach. We are therefore not adding propylene glycol as a permitted feed additive in Soil Association’s organic standards. This means the use of propylene glycol is restricted and only permitted under veterinary guidance and must be clearly documented within your livestock management plan.
Soil Association do not believe there is a need for iron dextran in organic systems because all organic piglets must have access to soil and manure, which will give them plentiful iron from their natural environment. This means the use of iron dextran 10% is also restricted and only permitted under veterinary guidance and must be clearly documented within your livestock management plan. There will be no change for these in Great Britain, where these feed inputs are currently already prohibited. Please visit technical information for more information relating to these two new higher standards introduced.
Soil Association Sourcing Requirement Updated
Soil Association’s Sourcing Organic Ingredients Annex has been updated to version 2.0. Requirement 1.3 of the annex has been amended to reflect the new Food and Drink Standard on Critically Endangered species.