Updated standards for Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Standards for organic food and drink, farming and growing, and sourcing are affected.
These standards updates are not relevant for Soil Association Certification clients on the following schemes:
health and beauty (updated standards will be launched and communicated separately via Beauty News next week - these will not apply to COSMOS)
textiles
Food For Life Served Here
forestry
Summary of changes
Soil Association has 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 Soil Association’s Food and 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:
they are cultivated and organically grown (not harvested from the wild), or
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 does 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.
