Considering Organic Certifications and Alternatives

Some people are skeptical of the authenticity of some imported organic ingredients and frankly, depending on source, we are too. That’s why we rely on a third-party certifier.

Whenever we trust a third-party certifier to do our due diligence for us we are taking a risk, but this has proven to be the best way for us to obtain the highest quality, closest-to-local or local ingredients grown or obtained sustainably. It requires trust whether we are looking at National Organic Program USDA Organic certification, non-GMO claims, farm practices certifications or any other claims where we rely on someone else’s expertise to validate a choice. Generally we don’t have the information to check the claims ourselves, and we don’t have the authority to question them even if we doubt them. If the NOP run by the USDA says something is certified organic, it is.

However, following the money on a larger scale can lead to some troubling conclusions. Potentials gains from fraud are high, penalties for violations are low, and there is no boots-on-the-ground testing. Selling a single truckload of soymeal as organic if it is conventional can easily be far more profitable than the potential fine ($11,000) for a violation. And it’s unlikely that it will be caught or investigated or prosecuted anyway.

While we are happy to use organic ingredients whose origins we trust, once the supplier is from outside the region things get a lot muddier. Products coming in from Canada may have come in from Asia to a Canadian port and only appear to be from Canada. And technically, those products are just as organic as the grain grown down the road at the farm whose crop we can see out the window.

An importer at a recent conference we attended assured the audience with a wink that there would be no trouble with the paperwork on the organic ingredients his company was selling, regardless of the country of origin. Is this all we want? No paperwork trouble, or no trouble and clean product?  Ideally, we want both, and that is what the USDA’s NOP program aims to guarantee.

That’s why we do our own due diligence on top of official seals and certifications, checking on the origins of any potential ingredients before we buy them.