What is Certified Organic labelling?

There are six certification bodies in Australia approved by the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture to certify to the National Standard for Organic & Biodynamic Production.

Each of these accredited certifying bodies has a unique certification label consisting of the Label and a certification number which is provided to certified organic operators.

This number is the certified operator’s unique identification number. All certification bodies must have all their certified operators listed on their website where an interested party can search for information on an operator certified through their certified body.

NCO Label

 

The spring leaf, NASAA Organic label is used by NASAA Certified Organic (NCO) operators. At present there are two style variations of the label:

Original spring leaf NASAA Organic label
Phasing out by early 2021

New look spring leaf NASAA Organic label 
Available from 2019

If you see either label on a product with the Certification Number, you can go to the Product Search page of this website, enter the certification number in the box marked ‘Cert. No.’ and all the details of that operator will appear.

If nothing appears on the operator’s number, please ring NCO on +61 8 7231 7700 as it either means we have missed something or the product is not certified by NCO as it claims to be.

Organic Certifiers in Australia

In addition to the NASAA spring leaf label, within Australia there are five accredited certifiers whose labels may appear on certified organic product:

Certifiers in other countries

Internationally, organic labels are also issued by organic certification bodies that operate in each country. You will often find these on certified organic products imported into Australia from countries like the USA, Japan and the EU. Some examples are listed below:

International Certification Labels