Your organic business after Brexit

Your Business & Brexit

Brexit has caused much uncertainty for organic farmers and growers, manufacturers and traders.

As the UK’s leading food and farming charity we are here to reassure and support our licensees following our departure from the EU.

This Brexit Hub contains lots of free information, checklists for your business and webinars to help you prepare for Brexit.

This information is correct at the time of publishing on 19th January 2022. Please ensure that you are checking the page regularly for current information.

Important new updates and clarifications:

19/1 - TRACES ISSUE ongoing: You are still required to have COI’s for any shipments to the EU, EEA or N.I but TRACES has been experiencing glitches and technical difficulties with our new Soil Association TRACES account, which means you are not able to select Soil Association Certification in box 1 when creating COI’s. We are urgently working with the TRACES team and DEFRA to find a solution as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be fixed before Monday 24^th January 2022. If your shipment is urgent please contact the COI team at coi@soilassociation.org. Please don’t send any goods as we will not be able to help once the goods have left GB. As soon as we have further information we will let you know. Thank you for your patience during this time.

4/1 - SA Certification no longer able endorse COIs on TRACES for out-of-scope product under our BIO-142 scheme: New Implementing Regulation EU 2325/2021 has now been published and amends the lists of recognised third countries /certification bodies previously detailed in Annexes III and IV of Regulation EC 1235/2008. UK certifiers are now listed in Annex II of EU 2325/2021 and all consignments exported to the EU and NI must be endorsed under GB-ORG-05 and be within scope of the TCA.

23/12 – Movements to NI: Defra have confirmed that the UK Government’s standstill period applies to the re-export of EU and RoW organic products under STAMNI. Authorised Traders can continue to move organic goods in 2022 as they did in 2021.

03/11 -E-seal electronic endorsement of COIs: We have now been granted the E-seal for GB-ORG-05 therefore COIs submitted on GB-ORG-05 will be electronically endorsed and paper copies will not be required going forward.

28/10 - UK publishes GB12355 register . Defra have now published a list of Third Countries/Territories and Third County Control Bodies/Authorities (subject to any category restrictions) recognised by the UK for product imported into GB.

1/10 - Turkey added to list of countries with new import controls: Turkey joins Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Moldova and China, as the sixth country with additional organic import controls. Read more.

Need to know

From January 1st 2021 there were:

Implications for export organic products from GB to NI, the EU and other markets. This applies to seeds, plants, livestock, crops and feed. Textiles and cosmetic products are not affected, unless products are imported as 'food grade'
New requirements for import of organic products into GB from third countries (includes EU) and into NI from GB
New requirements for exporting organic products to NI, the EU and other third countries
New labelling requirements for labelling in the GB and for organic products exported to the EU and NI

Checklist for your business

From the 1st January 2021:

Exporters should ensure their overseas importers are certified, labelling complies with their country's requirements and if required, a Certificate of Inspection (or Import) is provided
Both GB importers and 1st consignees in GB have a 'processor' license and a GB Certificate of Inspection should be presented at port (from 1st July 2022 for imports from EEA/EU)
Bour labelling for products placed on the GB market complies with any changes to UK requirements

Changes affecting all Farmers and Growers

Imports

If you directly import animals, animal products, food, feed and high risk products please makes sure you are aware of the new IPAFFS system applicable for organic and non-organic products. More information can be found on the Government website here.
If you directly import any organic products please visit our importing page for the latest guidance.

Exports

Changes to live animal export came into effect on January 1st 2021. For more information click here.
Please visit our Brexit Hub exporting page for the latest guidance on organic exports to NI, the EU and Non-EU countries. If you are a producer directly exporting to NI or the EU please email coi@soilassociation.org with details, you may be required to provide yield information before you can export.

Labelling

For changes to labelling, please view our labelling pages.

Exporting from the UK

New export rules came into force from 1^st January 2021

Importing into the UK

New import rules came into effect on 1^st January 2021

Brexit and organic standards

What’s staying the same?

Nothing will change to the Soil Association organic standards post-Brexit and we will continue to maintain our existing high standards.

All UK certifiers will continue to certify UK organic businesses for UK trade.

All issued certificates with a 2021 expiry date will remain valid in the UK. Read more on certificate validity from January 1st 2021.

What’s changing?

New UK organic food & farming statutory instruments have now been passed into law, ready to become regulation after Brexit. In anticipation of continued access to EU market these will remain closely aligned with existing EC organic regulations.