19 November 2008: 11.00–12.00

Organic Health and Beauty Products.

Mr Keith Ball, Soil Association Certification Ltd

The Soil Association is a charity set up to promote organic agriculture. In 2002 we produced our organic Health and Beauty standards, the first to be published in the UK.

The majority of the organic health and beauty products certified in the UK are certified by us. We have been working with other certifiers in Europe to develop common standards for H&B products that we hope will form the basis for an EU regulation to govern this sector in a similar way to that in place for organic food. We will give an update on that process. We will give a summary of the UK organic H&B market and identify some of the opportunities and barriers to the market and an indication of how manufacturers can achieve certification with us. The seminar will cover:

• The Soil Association, it's history, aims, objectives and relevance to the H&B market.
• The principles of organic production.
• The Soil Association standards for organic Health and Beauty products.
• What is allowed, what is not and why.
• The current regulatory requirements for labelling a product as organic. UK, EU and overseas.
• Progress towards a common standard for organic H&B products.
• The current market for organic H&B products.
• Opportunities for marketing ingredients for organic H&B products.
• Current barriers to expanding the market for organic H&B products.
• Requirements for certification