COLOGNE (March 31st, 2006) – EurepGAP launches the new EurepGAP TEA Standard. This new standard provides Tea Farms/Processing Units and their retailer customers worldwide with a set of criteria for Good Agricultural Practices.

The new standard follows the format of other EurepGAP codes, covering the critical areas from record keeping, crop protection products management, worker health and safety and environmental issues. The new standard enables Tea Farms/Processing Units to ensure that their product meets the demands of leading retailers worldwide. To those markets this means that besides fresh fruits and vegetables, cereal and livestock farming, coffee and farmed fish, tea is the next food product available according to EurepGAP standards. The standard covers all production stages up to tea ready for final consuming, including sections covering harvesting and processing. This is applicable for black tea, green tea or other intermediate products such as the Oolong tea.  

The EurepGAP Tea Standard was developed in cooperation with Control Union Certifications B.V. (former Skal International) and was trialed in the field before launching. Two pilot inspections were made in Sri Lanka and in India and the final test inspection took place at Rothschild Tea Estate from Pussellawa Plantations Ltd. in Sri Lanka, covering from nursery up to processing of tea leaves, where black tea is the final product. At the same time, Rothschild Tea Estate showed full compliance against the EurepGAP Tea Standard after corrective actions took place from the first pilot audit. This will make them the first EurepGAP certified farm and processing unit for the Tea standard.

During this first year of implementation, certificates against EurepGAP Tea will be issued in a non-accredited status until the EurepGAP revision process for 2007 is finalized. The Tea code will then be integrated into the Integrated Farm Assurance Standard (IFA) and will be updated according to the revision process. The EurepGAP IFA General Regulations for Fruit and Vegetables must be followed until the revised version is available in 2007. Inspectors that qualify as Fruit and Vegetables inspectors according to Appendix 2 of the General Regulations, and that have the applicable experience (2 years after graduating and 3 years overall experience in the Tea industry), may do inspections against the Tea standard. Certification Bodies who want to include Tea in their scope must receive accreditation under the EurepGAP IFA scope.
The code is freely available on the www.eurepgap.org Website.