GlobalGAP

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GlobalG.AP
represented by Foodplus GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH (Foodplus)
founding 1997 (Foodplus: 2000)
Seat Cologne (Foodplus)
management Kristian Moeller (Managing Director of Foodplus)
Guy Callebaut (Chairman of the Steering Committee)
Number of employees 27 (Foodplus, 2014)
Branch Services , certification in agriculture
Website www.globalgap.org

GlobalGAP , even GlobalG.AP , proper spelling GLOBALG.AP until 2007 EurepGAP is a privately owned-applied quality assurance - and certification system for the agriculture and the name of the organization that defines this system and operates. The abbreviation GAP stands for Good Agricultural Practice (' good agricultural practice ').

Foodplus GmbH , based in Cologne , acts as the “sole management platform” ( corporate management ) of GlobalGAP .

object

GlobalGAP is above all a business-to-business initiative. Its main goal is seen to be the improvement of food safety by ensuring compliance with minimum standards. The focus is on conventional agriculture , processing only plays a minor role. Companies that comply with the standards can have themselves checked and certified. The core of the certification is the audit of quality management systems. According to its own statements, other goals of GlobalGAP are the promotion of sustainable production methods, responsible use of water and consideration for the well-being of workers and animals. More efficient production, responsible use of chemicals and integrated pest control should contribute to this. As of October 2015, 427 different products can be certified.

Occasionally, GlobalGAP activities are also aimed at consumers , for example by means of a website about aquaculture, on which consumers can find out more about the producer by entering a GlobalGAP number (GGN) on the packaging.

Organization and finance

GlobalGAP describes itself as a not-for-profit organization. In 2011, GlobalGAP had 330 members, including 180 food producers , almost 50 large companies in the food trade and the food service sector, and 108 associated members. Among the producers are mainly farms that cultivate field crops and fruit, approx. 20% practice aquaculture , 8% cattle. Most of the members are based in Europe.

A steering committee, which consists of five elected representatives from the food trade and five from the producers, sets the strategic guidelines, makes fundamental decisions and approves the financial plan. When making decisions, it involves so-called technical committees and committees of the interest groups involved in a consultation process. The three technical committees for the product groups plants, aquaculture and farm animals decide on industry and product-specific questions. They also have half producers and half traders. Overall, GlobalGAP pursues the goal of a partnership between retailers and producers. However, since the producer side is distributed heterogeneously across different product groups, a case study by the European Commission, for example, sees the retailer side in a more dominant position.

For the operating businesses than, the implementation of standards and support for Steering Committee and Secretariat , the Food Plus GmbH based in Cologne (27 employees in 2014) responsible. It is a sole subsidiary of EHI-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH of the EHI Retail Institute , a research and educational institute for retail. For its part, Foodplus GmbH maintains a wholly-owned holding to represent its interests in the USA , GlobalG.AP North America, Inc.

In 2013 GlobalGAP had a turnover of around 5 million euros. The main sources of income are registration fees from producers (2013: 46.4%) and certification fees (2013: 33.6%). In addition, there are membership fees (around 12% in 2013) and income from events and training courses. The expenditures are distributed in the order of activities to involve the various stakeholders, integrity and benchmarking measures, efficiency measures and partnership activities. The membership fees in 2006 were between 1550 and 3600 euros.

history

At the beginning of the 1990s, various European supermarket chains introduced their own integrated harvest management systems in order to reach customers with preferences for sustainable products without having to enter the niche market of organic products at the time. However, this meant that food manufacturers had to take part in many different audits. In order to remedy this situation, retailers from the Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) established a uniform standard in Europe under the name EurepGAP . As more and more companies outside of Europe took part in the following years, the name was changed to GlobalGAP in 2007 .

Up to 2008, 71,125 GlobalGAP certificates had been issued, 80% of them in Europe (around 10% in Germany). This was the third largest certification system, according to ISO 9001 and Q&S .

By 2014 GlobalGAP was recognized in more than 110 countries and around 139,000 certificates were issued.

Standards and certification

GlobalGAP defines standards for products from the groups fruit and vegetables, animal husbandry, flower production and aquaculture. The standards essentially cover the agricultural production stage through to the unprocessed product. There are also criteria for seeds and plants, for feed production and traceability during further processing and along the supply chain.

The standard, called Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA), consists of a number of sub- standards :

  • General provisions define the criteria for when an implementation of the criteria is considered to be successful; they contain framework conditions for testing and regulating the standard.
  • Control Points and Compliance Criteria ( Control Points and Compliance Criteria , CPCC) build on the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) and define areas for different requirements that must be adhered to. These are in turn divided into
    • Criteria for the entire operation,
    • Basic criteria for product groups plants, farm animals and aquaculture and
    • special criteria for individual product types, such as fruit and vegetables, tea, pigs or poultry,
    • Criteria for transport and traceability, compound feed production, seeds and plants,
    • Voluntary social criteria ( Risk Assessment on Social Practice , GRASP), which were developed together with the German Society for Technical Cooperation and some supermarket chains and are worked out in national standards.

Out of 234 checkpoints, 117 deal with food safety, 50 with the environment, 46 with traceability and 21 with worker welfare. The criteria can be important or minor mandatory criteria or recommendations.

The standards are revised every four years. While criteria on accountability, inspections and hygiene have tended to be tightened, environmental and social standards have tended to be weakened.

Testing and certification are carried out by GlobalGAP-accredited certification institutions , which are also accredited according to ISO standard 65 / EN 45011. In 2014 there were a total of 141 certification bodies with 1,600 inspectors and auditors. Inspections are carried out annually, and there may be unannounced inspections. Certification costs are determined by the certifiers . According to estimates, the cost of certification in 2006 was between 1,000 and 50,000 euros.

Other national standards can be recognized as equivalent via a benchmarking system.

Product labeling

Broccoli label with GlobalGAP number ("GGN") and global location number ("GLN")

Certified products can with a number of producer, the GlobalGAP number (GGN) or a number of the packing station, the Global Location Number ( GLN ,) in be. The certification status of the company and product can be checked in a database. In some cases, additional details about the producer are also available once they have approved the publication of this data. The labeling can serve to identify and trace contaminated food batches.

Effects

GlobalGAP primarily takes into account minimum standards, essentially those prescribed by law. The audits offer an additional private control and can thus supplement an incomplete state control.

Producers and trade

For retailers, delivery from GlobalGAP-certified producers means a lower risk of food scandals. Producers have the advantage that they do not have to meet individual, retailer-specific standards and take part in corresponding audits, but can instead demonstrate the requirements of various food retailers via an audit. The standard can help producers comply with legal requirements and introduce integrated farming practices. However, individual studies have shown that the costs of certification outweighed the efficiency gains from the introduction of GlobalGAP.

The participation of producers in a GlobalGAP certification is basically voluntary, but many trading companies now require certification. Because of the effort and costs associated with certification, this can represent a market entry barrier, especially for smaller producers and producers from developing countries.

sustainability

Unlike many other private quality and safety standards from the food sector, GlobalGAP takes into account a number of environmental and social criteria. However, the environmental and social standards are viewed as rather weak. There is a trade-off between accessibility and costs on the one hand and high environmental and social criteria on the other.

The WWF has called in 2008 the GlobalGAP standards for water use as insufficient. In Spain, for example, they would not prevent irrigation from illegally drilled wells. The WWF called for a corresponding supplement to the GlobalGAP standards.

Greenpeace does not see the GlobalGAP standard for aquaculture as sustainable. Although the standard is independent, well documented, accessible even to small businesses and excludes genetically modified fish and wild catches, there are significant gaps in the environmental criteria and social criteria are only recommendations, and the transparency and involvement of various interest groups are poor.

Others

The requirements of GlobalGAP were the starting point for those of the UTZ Certified food standard . They were modified in UTZ in order to be able to use them better in smallholder agriculture: Documentation requirements and language were simplified, the requirements were differentiated according to whether they can be met by groups or individual farmers. UTZ strives for greater market transparency by providing producers with information on the average additional premiums that dealers pay for certified products.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Annual financial statements for the business year from 01/01/2014 to 12/31/2014 . Foodplus GmbH, May 18, 2015. In: Bundesanzeiger , June 17, 2015. Accessed June 14, 2016.
  2. ^ (Gawron 2009) Jana-Christina Gawron, Ludwig Theuvsen: Certification schemes in the European agri-food sector: Overview and opportunities for Central and Eastern Europe . In: Outlook on Agriculture . tape 38 , no. 1 , March 2009, p. 9-14 , doi : 10.5367 / 000000009787762716 .
  3. ↑ GLOBALG.AP organization . GlobalGAP website, accessed June 14, 2016.
  4. ↑ Gawron2009, p. 6.
  5. ↑ a b c GlobalGAP (Ed.): Corporate Brochure . A World of Difference. January 2012 ( PDF ). PDF ( Memento of the original from August 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.globalgap.org
  6. ↑ GLOBALG.AP General Information: Product List. (No longer available online.) GlobalGAP October 1, 2015, archived from the original on June 14, 2016 ; accessed on June 14, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.globalgap.org
  7. ↑ GlobalGAP (Ed.): Terms of Reference . GLOBALGAP Board. October 2008 ( PDF; 60 kB ). PDF; 60 kB ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.globalgap.org
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h Andreas Schneider, Stephan Hubertus Gay: Case studies - 5th EurepGAP . Ed .: European Commission. 2006 ( PDF ). PDF ( Memento of the original dated December 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / agrilife.jrc.ec.europa.eu
  9. ↑ a b GLOBALG.AP Annual Report 2013–2014: Financial Report 2013. GlobalGAP, January 13, 2015, accessed on June 14, 2016 (English).
  10. ↑ a b c d Agni Kalfagianni, Doris Fuchs: The GlobalGAP . In: Peter Utting, Darryl Reed, Ananya Reed (Eds.): Business Regulation and Non-State Actors - Whose Standards? Whose Development? 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-59311-3 ( PDF, Working-Paper Version, 2011 ).
  11. ↑ Gawron2009, pp. 6, 8.
  12. ↑ a b GLOBALG.AP Annual Report 2013–2014: Products Report. GlobalGAP, January 13, 2015, accessed June 14, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Standard for Controlled Agricultural Management Version 4. (No longer available online.) GlobalGAP, archived from the original on July 1, 2013 ; Retrieved July 10, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.globalgap.org
  14. ↑ a b GlobalGAP (Ed.): Control points and fulfillment criteria - Controlled agricultural management - Introduction . February 1, 2012 ( PDF; 817 kB ).
  15. ↑ GLOBALG.AP GRASP (Good Agricultural Practice) - additional module for social practice in agriculture. In: label-online.de. Consumer Initiative , accessed June 14, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Aldi Nord recalls pears due to pesticide contamination. N24, May 23, 2012, accessed July 10, 2013 .
  17. ↑ Gawron2009, Chapter 3
  18. ↑ No order without a certificate . In: DEGA P&H . November 12, 2011 ( Online [PDF]).
  19. ↑ Traceability is the key . The sensitive topic of quality assurance in vegetable growing was discussed by a panel of experts against the background of the individual limit value regulations of trading companies. In: Lebensmittel Zeitung . May 30, 2008, p. 41-44 ( online [PDF]). Online ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.globalgap.org
  20. ↑ Thomas Herzfelda, Larissa S. Drescherb, Carola Grebitusc: Cross-national adoption of private food quality standards . In: Food Policy . No. 36 , p. 401-411 .
  21. ^ A b Jason Potts, Jessica van der Meer, Jaclyn Daitchman: The State of Sustainability Initiatives Review 2010: Sustainability and Transparency . Ed .: International Institute for Environment and Development. G03066, November 2010, p. 22, 154-156 ( online [PDF]).
  22. ↑ Thirsty vegetables. Globalgap conference in Cologne: WWF calls for stricter environmental criteria for fruit and vegetable cultivation. WWF, October 15, 2008, accessed July 10, 2013 .
  23. ↑ GlobalGAP. Greenpeace, May 20, 2010, accessed July 10, 2013 .
  24. ↑ Comparative study on the GLOBALGAP Fruit and Vegetables Standard and the EU Organic Agriculture Regulation . Discussion paper commissioned by the UNCTAD secretariat. December 2009, p. 22–23 ( Online [PDF; 358 kB ]).