The decision on the EU logo was finalised on 1 March 2010. The new logo can now be used as soon as the new regulation is published and enters into force. At that time the logo will be available for download at the EU organic website.

Products with the old EU logo can be sold until stocks are exhausted.Packaging material with the old logo and code numbers can be used until 1July 2012 if the product complies with Regulation (EC) 834/2007 in all other aspects other than the labelling.

The logo can be printed in green and white or black and white. In addition,if the packaging is dark the logo can be printed in a negative format, and when a coloured logo is printed on a coloured background an outer line to make a better contrast between the logo and the background is permitted. The logo can be combined with other logos or texts referring to organic farming provided the nature of the EU logo is not changed. The code number can be placed in the same visual field as the logo but does not have to be placed directly beneath the logo.

There will be a new system for the code numbers for certification bodies and governmental authorities. The new code numbers will have the format of AB-CDE-999. The first letters, i.e. the ‘AB’ represent the ISO code for the country where the product was finally certified. The middle section of the code is an indication of organic farming, the text to be decided by the Commission or the EU Member State. So far the terms ‘bio’, ‘öko’, ‘org’ and ‘eko’ have been mentioned as acceptable but it is likely there will be more.The number in the end of the code indicates the certification body or governmental authority code that took the final certification decision for the product.

A certification body that is active in several countries will have more then one code, but it is not yet clear how the code system will work in detail. What is clearly stated is that the Commission shall make the code numbers available to the public by any appropriate means, including publication on the internet.

Eva Mattsson

When voting on the three finalists for a new EU-logo for organic production finished at the end of January nearly 130,000 votes had been cast. The winning logo, which got over 60% of the votes, was announced a week later on Monday 8 February. The successful logo was the ‘star leaf’ or ‘Euro-leaf’.

Discussions in the months during the voting period generally concluded that the ‘star leaf’ logo, i.e. the winning logo, was the best option of the three proposals, or as many said the ‘least bad option’. It is not yet clear when a formal decision by the Standing Committee on Organic Farming (SCOF) will betaken. A meeting was planned for the first week of February but as the adoption of the Commissioners was delayed this meeting had to be cancelled.The press release announcing the winner states that the regulation will be amended in the coming weeks. The next planned meeting of the SCOF is at the end of March and, as it is not easy to arrange extra meetings at short notice, it is still unclear whether a decision will be taken before this official meeting in March. It is stated in the EU-legislation that the new logo must be used from 1 July 2010 for new packaging material. The delay in the decision will, of course, result in a shorter implementation time for companies who want to start using the new logo from the beginning. It has been stated that packages with the old logo can be used until stock is used up.

There has been criticism that none of the three finalist logos were good enough. However, the process is concluded and there will now be a new EU-logo for organic production. Accepting the criticism and starting the whole process again would have been too big a loss of prestige for the outgoing Commissioner and the Commission. One lesson learnt from the process is that it probably would have been better to have used professional designers from the start. There has also been concern whether the logo can be printed small enough to fit on small packages or in adverts.

Queries about the colour of the logo are also still unanswered. Is the logo only in green or is black or even other colours possible? Another question has been whether the logo’s white stars on a green background could be printed positively, so there are green (or black) stars on white. Though these questions have not been answered, it does seem that there is a willingness for technical corrections,so that the new logo is functional for users and easily visible for consumers. To explain the meaning of the logo it will probably be possible to put wording like ‘organic’ or ‘bio’ in conjunction with the logo. How the wording should be placed in relation with certification body code number and origin statement is still not finalised.

Eva Mattsson

Helping export companies in EU Third Countries

A new international standard ‘Equivalent European Union Organic Production Processing Standard for Third Countries’, has been drawn up by the Italian certification body ICEA, working with the other accredited certification bodies from Italy. The Standard is intended to become the accurate point of reference for all the companies certified by ICEA in Third Countries that want to export their organic certified products to the EU. However, it can also be used by any exporting company and certification body from a Third Country.

This Standard has been developed from the European Regulations (EC)834/2009 and the more detailed implementing rules in (EC) 889/2008. It combines, rationalises and simplifies these two documents, adapting them for use outside the legal framework of the European Union. The aim of the Standard is to provide an equivalent production rule that may be used by operators for gaining certification equivalent to that described in (EC)834/2007, and thus access to the European market.