MADE WITH CERTIFIED ORGANIC INGREDIENTS - WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

In short, when you see a product labeled “Made with Certified Organic Ingredients,” you know that the items listed as Organic on the front panel and on the ingredient panel, have been certified organic.  Specifically, this means that a certifying agent has sent an inspector to the manufacturing facility and has traced every ingredient back to its origin and verified its organic status.

LEVELS OF ORGANIC CERTIFICATION

There are several levels of organic certification.  The first level, “100% organic” is self-explanatory.  The second level, “organic” is applied to all organic products with greater than 95% organic ingredients. The third level, our category, “made with certified organic ingredients” is the designation for products with more than 70% organic ingredients. Potager handmade soap bars vary, depending on the scent, from between 87% to 88% organic.  The only non-organic ingredients in our all natural soap are sodium hydroxide (used in all bars) and charcoal powder (used in our Lavender Charcoal bars).  Sodium Hydroxide is used to convert the organic base oils into soap. None remains in the final product.  Charcoal is used in our Lavender Charcoal soap.  It is not organic and there is no organic alternative.  Charcoal cannot be designated organic and should not be labeled as such.

HOW DID WE GET ORGANIC CERTIFICATION?

The first step for Potager was visiting USDA.gov and studying the certification process.  We chose a Baystate Certifiers, a certifying agent, from the site. Our journey towards certification took approximately 6 months and officially began with a phone call to Baystate Organic Certifiers.  The folks there explained the process, the cost, and sent us the information packet we would need to begin.  In short, every step of our process chain had to be carefully considered and laid out to make sure no contamination from non-organic material occurred. Our Handling Plan covered but was not limited to labeling and composition, product flow, sanitation, storage, quality control, batch and recall planning.  We developed an Organic Profile for each scent.  Once all the planning and paperwork was complete and submitted, we were contacted by a field inspector and the inspection date was set.  The inspection lasted several hours…and the rest is history 😊.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE

When you buy a bar of Potager cold process soap you can be assured that all the ingredients listed as organic are just that. No GMO’s, no pesticides, nothing but pure organic ingredients.  Furthermore, we can at any time trace every bar of soap back to its batch.  From the batch record we can trace every ingredient back to its actual born on date.  For example, using the batch number we can trace the exact date of manufacture of the essential oil in that bar of soap.  While we may never need to trace the manufacture date of a particular essential oil, this is just an example of the level of care that goes into the production of every bar of Potager Soap. 

I WANT TO KNOW MORE

This was a quick overview of the process.  If you are interested in knowing more about organic certification or Potager’s journey towards certification, please feel free to reach out by filling out the contact form on the Contact Us page.