Prospects And Procedures For Organic Certification Of Coconut Products
Base on the transaction certificates issued by Control Union branch office Indonesia, the market of organic coconut products continues to show positive growth. Within the last five years the market growth 24-fold with 127 percent growth annually. In the year of 2011 the organic coconut products were traded in nine countries only, and five years later, year 2015, were traded in 47 countries. The five leading markets are United States, the Netherlands, Australia, United Kingdom and Belgium.
The growth is not only on the quantity of organic coconut product, but also the type of coconut products. In the year of 2011 only one certified product namely coconut sugar was traded, but in 2015 there were 10 types of certified organic coconut products, namely coconut sugar, whole coconut, coconut meat, coconut water, virgin coconut oil, coconut milk/cream, coconut milk powder, coconut syrup, desiccated coconut, and coconut cooking oil, were traded. Organic coconut sugar is the most traded among them. The growth of organic coconut sugar market in the last five years is 21-fold with 52% growth annually.
The organic standard which is used in this report are European Union (EC No. 834/2007 and 889/2008), National Organic Program – United States Department of Agriculture (NOP-USDA) and Japanese Agriculture Standard (JAS). The certification procedures of those standards in principal is the same. Before beginning the certification process, in the transition period, the farms should not use the prohibited materials for a period of 36 months and Internal Control System should be set up for smallholder group.
The certification steps is started with contracting where applicant fills out and sends the application form and several documents to certification body (CB), after reviewing application form and then CB sends an offer letter to applicant, acceptance of offer by applicant, CB performs registration and sends confirmation of registration letter to applicant, applicant pays the audit and certification fee, CB performs auditing and reporting, and certification decision is taken by CB.