Letter to Patrick Holden, Soil Association,
from the Managing Director, Congelow Produce Ltd
I feel that it is time to put a few of my thoughts
down on paper to you and hopefully you can give me some suitable
answers.
As you are probably aware, we at Congelow are
very concerned with the amount of mixed packhouses which seem
to be operating at the moment, bearing in mind the enormous pressure
on our industry to maintain over integrity. Our fears are I think
justified somewhat as during a recent visit, one of your inspectors
casually said in conversation that he had recently inspected a
dual packhouse and whilst inspecting the paperwork, came upon
an internal memo which read something to the effect that once
the Soil Association Inspector was gone to carry on as normal!
What is the Soil Association doing to guarantee that this does
not happen?
Is the deregation period for mixed packhouses
being followed up? Again, I have recently heard of one company
who is an importer, who has been using one third party packer
(mixed packhouse) and have now switched to another third party
packer (also a mixed packhouse). As totally organic packhouse
we are obviously biased but we feel very strongly about maintaining
the integrity of organics.
Can you also ensure that we keep the confidentiality
of the various operations of your licensees as I was very worried
over one of the questions that was asked at your recent equivalence
meeting, whether, if a commodity was short could they find a source
by phoning the Soil Association and was given a positive answer.
Surely this infringes on our confidentiality as we certainly would
not like our suppliers who have taken many years to establish
as a supply base to be given out willy-nilly to all and sundry.
Lastly I would like to end on a positive note,
in saying that in recent months there appears to be a lot of good
vibes coming from your offices, keep up the good work.
24 November 1999
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