2023 Updates for Plant-based Product Certification Schemes

The GLOBAL G.A.P. certification scheme helps ensure compliance with good agricultural practices, ensuring food safety and environmental protection, among other aspects. 

Based on Food Safety criteria, this scheme provides a series of standards to guarantee that all links in the production chain are met, establishing a series of requirements that operators must meet throughout the whole process.  

Constantly evolving to meet the changing demands of the industry, these are some of the latest changes and developments within the GLOBAL G.A.P. scheme and for the Chain of Custody (CoC) following the official Technical Note 02/2023 publication.

GLOBAL G.A.P. updates  

IFA v6: The IFA v6-SMART version will be mandatory as of 1 January 2024, while the release of the IFA v6-GFS version will come into action the third or fourth quarter of 2024. Associated with IFA v6, the following add-ons already apply:  

• GRASP v2  
• AH-DLL GROW v3.1  
• FSMA v2  

The IFA v5.4-1- GFS version will apply until the end of the transition period. This means that producers certified under the IFA 5.4-1 version may continue to be certified under GRASP v1.3-1-i, AH-DLL GROW v3 and FSMA v1.3 until IFA v6-GFS becomes mandatory.  

For more information about transitioning from version 5 to version 6, please refer to the Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) V6 Standard Summary on the official Global G.A.P. website. 

Other modifications within the GLOBAL G.A.P. Scheme:   

LEAF Marque v16.1: This certification is mandatory as of 1 September 2023. Due to the slight adjustment in requisite 1.2, products will no longer have to be certified under the GLOBAL G.A.P. base standard, only those that require LEAF Marque certification.   

The LEAF Marque certification scheme will still require producers to:

• Include all their products in their LEAF Sustainable Farming Review (LSFR), and in their application to the certification body.    
• Comply with the LEAF Mark Standard for all their products.   
• Have all products included in the LEAF Mark audit scope.   
• Meet all relevant local, national or international regulatory requirements.   
• The LEAF Marque Standard will be mandatory as of 31 January 2024 for all GLOBALG.A.P. certified producers with the Nurture add-on module.

There are also relevant GLOBAL G.A.P. updates for the following product lists:

• Product List v6.0 (for IFA v6). Valid from July 2023.  
• Product List v5.17 (for IFA 5.2 and IFA 5.4-1 GFS). Valid from July 2023.  

Changes in GLOBAL G.A.P. Chain of Custody (CoC)   

New CoC version 6.1: Mandatory from 1 July 2023. One of the main changes in this version is the definition of Fruit and Vegetables, which now includes processed products such as cut, sliced, diced, frozen and deep-frozen, as long as the original product remains visibly recognisable. For a processed product to apply, the company must have a GFSI certificate (IFS, BRC, FSSC22000) covering that production process (RG point 4.4.1 e) and also abide by the CoCSC requirement 1.14). Otherwise, it would not be possible to include processed fruit in the CoC scope. 

TRADEMARKS POLICY v1.0-1: Mandatory from 1 June 2023, this document specifies the correct use of the GLOBAL G.A.P. trademark on websites or in commercial documents as reflected in the GLOBAL G.A.P. General Regulation Part I - Annex I.1 (clause 1-ii).   

For further information on any of the topics we mentioned below, check out the official GLOBAL G.A.P. website.  

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