IOAS Update June 17th, 2022

CFIA has released new guidance on when and how to verify compliance to COR when on-site inspections are not possible.
Please see the document in the following link:

Notice to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) accredited Certification Bodies on when and how to verify compliance when on-site inspections are not possible – Canadian Food Inspection Agency (canada.ca)

Other guidance documents may be found here :

https://inspection.canada.ca/organic-products/guidance-documents/eng/1327864600810/1327864681246

Several new EU regulations have recently been published;

Delegated Regulation EU 2022/760 has been issued. This Regulation amends Delegated Regulation 2021/2306, specifically in regard to Certificates of Inspection issued by control authorities and/or control bodies based in Ukraine.

The amendments are to Article 11 of Regulation 2021/2306. In consideration of the situation in Ukraine, the amendment allows control authorities’ and/or control bodies’ staff based in Ukraine to issue CoIs for exports from Ukraine to the EU, without applying qualified electronic seal in Box 18 of these CoIs, if such seal is not made available to that staff. Further the Regulation defines that border controls of the EU-member states may endorse such CoIs in TRACES with qualified electronic seal or on paper.

The provisions of Regulation EU 2022/760 are enforced retroactively as of 24th February 2022 and apply until 30th June 2022.

Please see the (EU) 2022/760 for full details.

Delegated Regulation EU 2022/474 supplementing Article 12(2) and amending Annex II, Part I of Regulation 2018/848, was issued.

This Delegated act is related to plant production rules only, and it includes conditions in which CBs may grant derogations for use of non-organic and in-conversion seedlings and plant propagative material in third countries.

Please see the  (EU) 2022/474 for full details.

NATRUE have published updated guidance on the certification of raw materials.

Please see the NATRUE website pages Certification and approval process – NATRUE and NATRUE’s Raw Materials Scheme – NATRUE for in depth information.

Textile Exchange have published the Content Claim Standard (CCS-101) V3.1 and updated CCS Certification Procedures, policy and List of Banned Organisation.

CCS-101-V3.1 Content Claim Standard is effective immediately and will become mandatory on July 1^st, 2022 (replacing CCS V3.0). Page 2 of the document contains more details, including the extended timeline for brand certification.

Updates in this version provide a few clarifications and the addition of criteria regarding the eligibility for certification (section B4). As a United States-based non-profit, Textile Exchange aligns its policies with the legislation of the United States and new criteria has been added to ensure the certification eligibility for standards are aligned with the latest legislative requirements. The criteria added in section B4 builds on previous guidance included in ASR-225 List of Banned Organizations, which has now been added to the CCS V3.1 directly to ensure clarity. The related guidance in ASR-225 will be updated upon its next publication to reference these new criteria within the CCS.

CCS-102-v3.0, CCS Certification Procedures,  for conducting audits to the CCS v3.0. It may be used immediately and is mandatory as of 1^st July 2022 (except for brand certification, which is mandatory as of 1^st April, 2023). 

CCS-105-v3.0, Policy for Alternative Volume Reconciliation (VR2), 

Here is an extract from the Policy´s introduction: “The Content Claim Standard (CCS) relies on batch-level segregation of certified products, for both 100% certified content and blended products. Textile Exchange recognizes that this model may not be implementable for sites that run continuous production processes with reclaimed or recycled material inputs and are unable to maintain batch level segregation. These sites are typically first processors in the textile supply chain. The inclusion of these first processors in textile supply chains presents an opportunity for meaningful positive impacts in the industry since due to their processing of larger product volumes. This policy details the eligibility criteria and requirements for the use of alternative volume reconciliation (VR2) by organizations that meet eligibility criteria. VR2 criteria provide an option for mass balance credit accounting at the level of an individual site. This policy is effective April 1st, 2022. All audits and assessments conducted on or after April 1st , 2022 shall be conducted using the CCS-105 Policy for Alternative Volume Reconciliation (VR2) version 3.0. NOTE: V3.0 is the earliest version of this document to align with CCS V3.0.”