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1.1 What is Fairtrade Certification? FLO-CERT is an independent international certification company offering Fairtrade Certification services to clients in more than 70 countries around the world. FLO-CERT audits and certifies the conditions of production, buying and selling of Fairtrade products. Our certification service provides an assurance to consumers of Fairtrade products that they are contributing to the Social- Economic Development of people through their purchases. The certification process ensures that economic, social and environmental standards are met in the production of (agricultural) products and that producers receive a Fairtrade Minimum Price and Premium. The graphic below gives an overview of the supply chain and the actors involved in it. For further information please refer to Section 2.3 How is FLO-CERT incorporated in the Fairtrade setup? and 3.1 How is the certification process setup? Version 54 / 12.09.2012 Quality Manual 4
1.2 How are FLO-CERT’s keywords defined? 1.2.1 What are Fairtrade Standards? Fairtrade Standards for producers and traders are the binding requirements within the Fairtrade system the operators must fulfil in order to enforce development in a business environment. The Fairtrade Standards help the operator to understand the generic principles of Fairtrade. The producer standards are social economic and environmental standards. The trade standards state how to buy, sell and manufacture Fairtrade products. They define the Fairtrade price and premium, explain the conditions of pre-financing and rules to encourage long-term trade relationships. The Standards Unit of FLO develops these standards. They are ratified by the Standards Committee, which consists of stakeholders from FLO member organizations, producer organizations, traders and external experts. To have a closer look on the standards please go to: http://www.fairtrade.net/standards.html 1.2.2 What are FLO-CERT Compliance Criteria? The compliance criteria comprise the interpretations of the standards and translate their generic principles into measurable criteria that fit into the operator’s reality. They serve as control points for the auditor to check compliance with the Fairtrade principles. Compliance criteria exist for all Fairtrade Standards and Fairtrade Product Standards. There are major and regular compliance criteria and there are different timelines for their fulfilment. Some compliance criteria need to be fulfilled from the initial phase onwards, while others only need to be complied with after 3 or 6 years or within the first or second year of certification. Operators are informed of Compliance Criteria applicable to them before they are evaluated against them. In 2011 the concept of Core and Development Criteria was introduced to the Fairtrade Standards for Small Producer Organizations (SPO) and Contract Production (CP). Core criteria are handled as before, meaning the operator can either be compliant or noncompliant with a core criterion. For the development criteria the evaluation approach is different: Five performance ranks are developed by FLO-CERT for each of the development criteria and the compliance of the operator is measured based on the average score which is achieved throughout all the development criteria. When a new standard is set by the FLO Standards Committee, FLO-CERT will be contacted and develops the associated compliance criteria. The interpretation of the standards and the definition of compliance criteria is mainly a consultation process within FLO- CERT’s Certification Department and the FLO Standards Committee. Compliance Criteria can be found on the website: http://www.flo-cert.net/flo-cert/37.html Version 54 / 12.09.2012 Quality Manual 5
Page 1 and 2: Quality Manual Version 54 / 12.09.2
Page 3: 1 Welcome to Fairtrade Certificatio
Page 7 and 8: 1.3.2 Setups The following setups p
Page 9 and 10: 2 Who are we? With over 2000 client
Page 11 and 12: 2.3.3 Producer Networks Producer ne
Page 13 and 14: 2.4.3 Organizational Structure Vers
Page 15 and 16: 2.5 How does FLO-CERT’s Governanc
Page 17 and 18: 3 What we do and how we do it? 3.1
Page 19 and 20: 3.2.2 Six year certification cycle
Page 21 and 22: 3.3.2 Document Structure and Purpos
Page 23 and 24: • In case of an allegation an ope
Page 25: Quality Policy The Quality Policy o

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