Organic agri-food certification is Ecogruppo Italia’s pivotal and most representative activity. The certification process for organic products lays its foundations on the EU Regulation 848/2018 which replaced, taking its legacy, the previous Regulation (EC) No. 834/2007.

Ecogruppo Italia (code number IT BIO 008) is authorized by MASAF, the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, pursuant to Legislative Decree 23 February 2018 No. 20 – DM No. 0612368 of 29 November 2022, by the European Union and by the Italian Accreditation Body ACCREDIA, based on the ISO/IEC 17065 standard.

In order to produce and sell organic products, you must register with a control body officially recognized by the national Ministry. That’s why we are here: you can contact Ecogruppo Italia, as we are authorized to certify and verify compliance with the EU regulation.

To start, you must first identify the portion of your land area destined for organic farming and then communicate your intentions to a competent local body. At the same time, you also need to notify the Ministry.

To register with Ecogruppo Italia’s control system, you need to send a Notification of organic farming activity. Since 2012, operators have been required to apply online, and the procedure varies from region to region:

  • Operators from Piemonte, Lombardia, Emilia Romagna, Toscana, Marche, Umbria and Puglia will use the respective regional systems.
  • Operators from other regions and autonomous provinces will apply via SIB (Organic Information System), a section of SIAN (the National Agricultural Information System) dedicated to the organic sector.

Once the first notification has been submitted, the operator must send a signed copy of the Application Form to Ecogruppo Italia (MD 045, downloadable HERE), to be attached together with the list of documents contained therein – which vary according to the type of activity carried out: vegetable and/or zootechnical production, beekeeping, processing, imported products.

Once the notification has been completed, Ecogruppo Italia will:

  1. Send the operator a contract, including the fees based on the inspection and certification service to be provided;
  2. Schedule the first on-site inspection (starting phase), and assign the operator to an inspector, who will verify the farm’s compliance on site and review the entire farm documentation;
  3. Once the documents and the results of the starting phase have been evaluated, Ecogruppo Italia formally decides to whether or not submit the operator to the organic control system. This results in the issue of the Certificate, which is valid for 3 years.
  4. Through an annual Control Plan, Ecogruppo Italia periodically supervises and evaluates the operator’s compliance with the reference standard: in fact, one or more annual inspections (announced or unannounced), plus sampling, are provided for.

For further information, please read our FAQ section, or  send us an email.