You’ve probably heard about the seizure, operated by the Financial Police of Verona, of a big quantity of products that have been traded insincerily as “organic”. This operation has been called “Gatto con gli stivali”.

Bioagricert wants to underline that “the real italian organic product” is the first victim of these frauds that may jeopardize this sector that has become an excellence of italian food sector. Consumers, the great part of companies and people who have been working for the development of this system are also victims of this fraud.

In any case, we don’t want to decry this event that is important, also for the peculiarity of the cereal chain and cereal by-products, the whole sector of organic production has been shaked too much, also because other products, that are outside of this investigation that is mainly focused on “cereals” (wheat, corn and other minor cereals) and industrial crops (soybean and other proteic and oleaginous crops).

The fraud concerns cereals and grains traded from 2007 to 2010. For this reason five businessmen and two technical staff of an certification body have been arrested. Companies accused of transactions of false organic products are  Sunny Land spa, Terre del sole, Bioagri sas, La Spiga srl, Soc. Agricola Fattoria della Speranza, Bioecoitalia srl, Terrasana sas, Centro cereal srl, Agridea SA (Switzerland), life Group Holding sa (Switzerland), Agripoint società Agricola srl, Società Agricola Marinucci; a small group of companies that must not invalidate the reputation of more than 47000 operators producing organic and that make Italy the leader of organic production in Europe. This fraud has been committed by making false invoices and certificates carried out also through companies that issued false documents.

We want to point out that no one of companies mentioned above have been controlled by Bioagricert srl and, to avoid confusion, we want to make clear that Bioagri sas, whose complete name is BIOAGRI SAS DI ALBIERO CATERINA & C. – Salizzole, Verona, a trading company of grains haven’t anything to do with BIOAGRICERT SRL, that is the certification body located in Casalecchio di Reno (BO).

At this juncture, Bioagricert is supporting Federbio’s efforts that want to qualify the system of control, including also the activation of a databse for the transactions of cereals and grains in order to protect market and operators operating in Organic sector, in addition to the service, that is available since many year, of checking certificates on-line.

In order to manage this emergency in a correct way, Bioagricert has activated additional verification and offered full support and cooperation to investigating officers, to Vigilance bodies and to cross check with other Certification Bodies. In order to protect companies working seriously, but in particular to protect consumers, we consider that it is important to make a “transparent and responsible act” by keeping under control this event. So, for chains involved in this kind of production, we kindly ask you to check if the traceability of your organic products has a direct or indirect origin from companies involved in this fraud and to inform us about the results of this verification, in any case.

For products that are still stored at your companies, if there are doubts about their origin, we ask you to activate immediately cross checks, by keeping goods segregated until soubts have been cleared.

You may find further information and communications on the following web sites: www.bioagricert.org or www.federbio.it

The whole Bioagricert staff is available for any doubt or information.

Bioagricert and “organic products” count on an honest and coherent cooperation of everybody.