inspection

Updated: April 11, 2016

Field evaluations are required by the National Organic Program (NOP) for all certifiers. As a result, CCOF implemented a pilot program in 2015 that has been very successful. We appreciate the NOP’s requirement and are embracing it with additional time and effort in 2016.

Did you know that all certified CCOF operations remain certified until their certification is formally withdrawn, suspended, or revoked? Did you know that you can have a new copy of your certificate — effectively a federal license — at any time? It’s true. You are certified and you can have a new certificate at any time. During the recent membership survey it came to our attention that waiting for new certificates is a challenge and creates unnecessary stress for some operations.

Recently, the NOP issued final rules and instructions to certifiers that provide important improvements to certification and require certifiers to raise the bar for both unannounced inspections and testing. These efforts help ensure that organic certification is rigorous and meaningful in the marketplace while guaranteeing that all NOP certified operations and certifiers are required to meet similar requirements. CCOF has performed both unannounced inspections and residue testing for some time and is therefore pleased to see these requirements effectively instituted by NOP.

We’ve removed the requirement for a signature on our Inspection Exit Interview Forms. The use of a signature was developed by CCOF, outside of the NOP regulations, and proved difficult in our fully-electronic inspection and review system. By submitting the exit interview to CCOF, our inspectors verify that the information is correct to their best knowledge. After your inspection the inspector will either leave a paper version with you or email an electronic version.