Limited Easter Bank Holiday COI endorsement service
We will be operating a limited service over Easter weekend Friday 14th April – Monday 18th April 2022.
This will be by pre-arrangement only, please contact the COI team (coi@soilassociation.org) by Wednesday 8th April to inform us if you plan to submit COIs for endorsement during this period.
Usual weekend pre-arranged COI endorsements will continue. Note where a COI requires a weekend endorsement, a draft COI must be submitted not later than 3pm on Friday.
All other certification departments will not be working over the Easter bank holiday, therefore please ensure your products are up to date on your trading schedule. Any new products looking to be exported will need to be submitted and approved by your Certification Officer before the COI can be endorsed.
Non-EU CoIs
We require all non-EU CoIs to be submitted to us by 5.30pm on Tuesday 12th April. We will not be endorsing NAQS, ECOP, Export certificates or NOP import certificates between Friday 14th April – Monday 18th April, normal service will resume of Tuesday 19th April 2022.
Shipping goods without an endorsed COI
EU regulation does not permit Soil Association Certification to endorse and sign COIs once the goods have left Great Britain. EU regulation Article 4 (EC) 2021/2306 which states that:‘ The control authority or control body that has verified the consignment in accordance with Article 3 shall issue a certificate of inspection in accordance with Article 5 for every consignment before the consignment leaves the third country of export or of origin. Please do not ship your goods without an endorsed COI. Soil Association Certification will not be able to endorse COIs retrospectively after the goods have left Great Britain.
Submitting Draft COIs
If you are working to tight shipping schedules, we recommend you submit a COI based draft documentation ie a pro-forma invoice, draft packing list, estimated weights of your consignment. The COI can then be provisionally endorsed, allowing the goods to leave GB. If submitting a draft COI you must email the actual weights, along with an updated invoice and packing list before the consignment arrives for clearance in the EU or NI. Please email these to coi@soilassociation.org quoting your COI number.