How does Intelipac guarantee that what we sell you is 100% organic?
Intelipac’s cotton manufacturing sites in India source organic cotton that meets with the organic audit standards set by the Control Union (NL).
This is a Netherlands based organization set up by the Dutch government in 1985 to follow EU Regulation 2092/91. The Control Union continues to operate independently with the responsibility of supervising the organic farming industry as well and the import, storage and trade of produce – including our cotton.
What this means in practice is that SKAL/Control Union will audit the cotton from its original grower on to the spinner, then to the weaver and finally at the manufacturing site (ours in India). This will ensure that the cotton is 100% organic and there is no interference with the supply chain to cut corners or include any non-organic cotton in what we produce.
1. Fairtrade Licensees: Cotton Bags
In January 2008 Intelipac achieved the status of ‘Licensee’ for the production of cotton bags. This means that we follow the standards set out by the Fairtrade Foundation. Intelipac supplies all of the new ASDA cotton shopping bags for life that have recently changed from organic sourced to Fairtrade sourced. More details about this accreditation, our status as a Licensee and the associated processes to protect farmers can be found at www.fairtrade.org.uk.
2. Ethical trading
A particularly important set of standards observed by Intelipac, which itself is directly accredited is the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI).
We also work with our factories to the standards set out under the BRC (British Retail Consortium) IOP (Institute Of Packaging) standard for all solutions we provide to our UK customers.
Intelipac is also a member of SEDEX the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange. SEDEX is a membership organization set up for businesses to ensure that ethical trading occurs at all levels. More can be found about the above organizations at the following web sites:
3. Customer Audits
Intelipac provides a range of cotton, Jute, paper and plastic packaging products to TESCO, ASDA and Marks & Spencer, to name just the key clients on a global scale. This includes the stringent technical audits in particular of Tesco and most recently the M&S ‘Plan A’ audits which lay down a very environmentally friendly and strong ethical supply chain standard.
Intelipac always welcomes new or prospective customers to visit any or all of our sites throughout Europe, Egypt, India, Taiwan, China, Thailand and Vietnam in order to conduct their own audits and indeed to see the state of the art facilities that we work with.
Intelipac is a Licensee of Fairtrade for the supply of cotton bags. We are also members of SEDEX where we ensure all of our manufacturing sites in Europe, India, China, Singapore and Vietnam are up to date members.
Our cotton manufacturing sites in India are amongst the few that can provide a fully auditable trail of certification for every cotton component within our solutions that allows us to mark bags as 100% organic – under the remit of the Netherlands based Control Union.
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