Soil Association Boosts Chinese Exports

The Chinese organic market is growing and the market is now estimated to be worth USD 7.8 million in 2015, which has been put down to Chinese consumers looking to buy food they can trust. Exportation of Brtitish organic-certified businesses provided 6 per cent of this in 2013, following a period of strong growth.

Emma Yeats, senior certification manager at Soil Association said, “This partnership will make it easier and more cost-effective for UK organic businesses to export their products to the Chinese market – helping them to make the most of this opportunity to grow the international market for UK organic goods.

“This is something that could be beneficial for some smaller businesses with very short supply chains. For those wanting to take advantage of the partnership, each aspect of the supply chain will need to be inspected and certified to the Chinese organic standard.”

Xingji Xiao, director of OFDC in Beijing said, “We think the partnership is good and very important for our collaboration and can help us promote our mutual organic programme.”

The partnership – supported by Defra and the British Embassy in Beijing – forms part of the Soil Association Certification’s Export Support Programme, within which international governments, certifcation bodies, export agencies and trade associations are working together with experts to extend the reach of Soil Association-certified companies.

Image courtesy of The Soil Association