Standards innovation: our work
Find out about our work around organic standards and how you can take part in consultations.
- How do we set standards?
- Why do we consult?
- Our current consultations and how to take part.
- Our ongoing work.
- Our past work.
How do we set standards?
We don’t just make them up! Soil Association standards are set and overseen by the independent expert Standards Board.
The governance process we follow to set our standards is open, transparent and robust. We aim for our standards to be stretching and ambitious, yet achievable.
Find out more about the wider process of how we set our standards.
Why do we consult?
We run in-depth, far-reaching and targeted public consultations as part of the standard-setting process, in line with industry best practice set out by ISEAL. We want to hear feedback from the full breadth of our stakeholders. We take all feedback into account before introducing or amending our Soil Association standards.
Our current standards development work
1. Permitted Inputs Consultation for Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has different organic rules from the rest of the United Kingdom (UK). The new European Union (EU) organic regulation was adopted in Northern Ireland following the UK’s exit from the EU.
There is new regulation in the EU. This adds several new permitted inputs for organic feed and crop production and for organic food and drink. We have reviewed all new inputs and are consulting on including these in the Soil Association standards.
For more details, please read the supporting technical document.
After a successful consultation and unanimous agreement from the Standards Board and Board of Trustees at the end of March 2025, we will be prohibiting the use of propylene glycol and iron dextran 10 percent in Northern Ireland’s Soil Association higher standards for livestock feed.
There will be no change for these in Great Britain, where these feed inputs are currently already prohibited.
2. Consultation on use of organic meat stamps in abattoirs.
The use of organic meat stamps is not a requirement of the Great Britain or Northern Ireland organic regulations. The only condition is that the operator must use ink colours in line with regulation.
Soil Association (SA) is proposing to simplify the process for abattoir operators. You no longer need to use an SA symbol meat stamp on organic carcasses as a higher SA standard.
The use of meat stamps was intended to provide a clear and easy method of identifying and tracing organic carcasses from abattoirs, through processing and storage operations. However, there are several other measures already in place which safeguard organic integrity. These include dedicated processing times and storage, cleaning of equipment, ear tags and ID numbers.
Following an insightful consultation process which ended in January 2025, we have decided to conduct further investigation. We will continue to work with stakeholders who engaged with the survey to better understand their position and help inform our next step. If you completed the survey and did not leave your contact information at the time and would like to be involved in further one to one discussions, please contact us via standards@soilassociation.org
For more details, please read our context summary.
3. Consultation on the protection of critically endangered species.
Protecting biodiversity is a central principle of organic food production.
We recognise that sustainable wild harvesting can have a positive impact. It helps to protect biodiversity by supporting rural livelihoods and encouraging conservation. If not sourced carefully, trade in wild harvested species can harmful, such as endangering vulnerable species.
We want to introduce a requirement to help safeguard critically endangered species within our food and drink standards. This will align with requirements in our farming standards.
Read our context summary to find out more.
After a successful consultation and unanimous agreement from the Standards Board and Board of Trustees at the end of March 2025, we will be requiring a higher standard for critically endangered species, as proposed in our context document.
You can expect to see these updates in our next standards publication, scheduled for summer 2025.
