CertCost UK Stakeholders Workshop

Event Date : October 17, 2011

CERTCOST is a European research project on the certification of organic food that has been running since 2008 and is due to complete in November. Please see (link below) for more detail on the objectives and organisation of the project. You can also find more information on the project website (www.certcost.org) from where you can download a number of publicly available reports.

Project team members have been working with the certification sectors in a number of EU member states and also in Turkey. The UK has featured in this work and a number of differences between the UK and the other countries have come to light. These will be reported at the workshop along with other outcomes to UK stakeholders with a view to discussing the implications.

This is an open invitation to the workshop and to pass the information on to colleagues with an interest in organic certification.

The detailed programme is being finalised but it will cover the following:

• The economics of non-compliance
• Publicly available prices for organic certification – a comparison
• Costs of certification including opportunity costs
• The potential of alternative certification systems
• Consumer awareness, perceptions and attitudes regarding organic certification logos (private and EU)
• An analysis of the risks of non-compliance
• Recommendations for improving the organic certification system

Further information and booking procedures can be accessed by emailing gillian.w@organicresearchcentre.com There will be no charge for the day which will include a complimentary buffet lunch.

More information about the CERTCOST project can be found here.