Updates to Organic Standards

Following the publishing of the updated standards in May, The Soil Association have since made some edits that largely concern formatting, grammar and spelling issues. There are also a small number of wording changes, where some omissions or errors have been rectified. A summary of these can be found in the Summary Changes document. The updated versions of the Soil Association Standards (version 18.1) and the EU Equivalent Organic Standards (version 1.1) have replaced previous versions on the website.

The Soil Association are constantly striving to ensure that the higher standards deliver the best possible system to maintain the integrity and quality of products under the Soil Association organic symbol. However, we also want to enable development of more innovative ways of achieving the same outcomes, whilst still allowing access to the organic symbol. Licensees who wish to explore or demonstrate innovative ways of delivering the same outcome and integrity of the higher standards, but in a different way, can apply for permission to do this through a research derogation. More information on the requirements for application, and the application process itself, can be found in this Research Derogation Annex.