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Consultation on Organic Notice: Recognised Entities, Verification and Evaluation (Tranche 2)

UPDATE – 10 JUNE 2026

New organic notice and review of submissions released

Following this consultation, New Zealand Food Safety has published the new Organic Notice: Recognised Agencies, Verification and Evaluation 2026.

Organic Notice: Recognised Entities, Verification and Evaluation 2026 [PDF, 366 KB]

This notice specifies requirements for recognised entities, including recognition, accreditation, verification, evaluation, quality management systems, competencies, and record-keeping, to supplement both sets of regulations (the Organic Products and Processing Regulations 2025 and the Organic Standards Regulations 2025).

Public consultation on the notice closed on 2 March 2026. We've released a summary of the submissions we received. 

Summary of submissions [PDF, 445 KB]

After the consultation closed

We considered all submissions that were sent to us. Content-related submissions are addressed in the submissions document. We appreciate the feedback provided on matters outside the scope of the notice. While this input will help inform the development and implementation of the system, these are not addressed in the submissions document.

This is the second of 3 consultations

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) began work to develop notice content to supplement both the Organic Products and Production Regulations and the Organic Standards Regulations. 

We consulted about the content of the organic supplementary notices in 3 stages (tranches).

  • Tranche 1: technical content to supplement the Organic Standards Regulations.
  • Tranche 2: requirements for recognised entities, including recognition, accreditation, verification, quality management systems, competencies and record keeping, to supplement both sets of regulations. 
  • Tranche 3: requirements for operators, organic management plans, record keeping, and imports to supplement both sets of regulations.

Consultation backgrond

We sought your input on the proposed Organic Notice: Recognised Entities, Verification and Evaluation.

The topics covered in this second tranche of notice content included:

  • recognition 
  • accreditation
  • quality management systems
  • competencies 
  • record keeping
  • verification
  • evaluation.

In addition to your general feedback on this second tranche of notice content, MPI sought feedback on a proposed amendment to the Organic Products and Production Regulations 2025 to support verification for official assurances where these are required for import into a destination market. 

When this consultation began, the regulations only enabled verification of operators (and their products) on a scheduled frequency. They did not enable the verification for official assurance on a requested basis. This omission meant that MPI was unable to require recognised third-party agencies to verify consignments' eligibility for export. 

The intention was that when an official assurance was sought, a recognised entity would verify the eligibility of the products for the destination market. Section 3.13 of the notice set out the way this verification would be carried out and the things to be considered. The amendment to the regulations was to allow for those requirements. 

The parts of the regulations that were relevant to verification for official assurances also applied.

Consultation documents

Draft notice: Recognised entities, verification and evaluation [PDF, 616 KB]

Discussion document [PDF, 292 KB]

Submissions are public information

Note that all, part, or a summary of your submission may be published on this website. Most often this happens when we issue a document that reviews the submissions received.

People can also ask for copies of submissions under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). The OIA says we must make the content of submissions available unless we have good reason for withholding it. Those reasons are detailed in sections 6 and 9 of the OIA.

If you think there are grounds to withhold specific information from publication, make this clear in your submission or contact us. Reasons may include that it discloses commercially sensitive or personal information. However, any decision MPI makes to withhold details can be reviewed by the Ombudsman, who may direct us to release it.

Official Information Act 1982 – NZ Legislation