RA Rainforest alliance

Hi,
Is there anyone who can give me a crash course on RA ? Quite honestly I don't understand it at all and how it works.
Don't judge me, I tried reading the website but got overloaded with all the info.
Thanks in advance

Hi AJL,

 

Are you looking to comply with the Sustainable Agriculture Standard for Farms or the supply chain?

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

Thanks. We are a producer, buying cocoa, so I guess the supply chain?

From what I remember, it related to sustainability (similar to RSPO) and social issues.  We purchased RA cocoa products for particular projects and went through the audit.  It's not a requirement of any BRC clause, just in case you're wondering that as well.

 

I quickly went to their site and downloaded this PDF of their standard.  Maybe it will give you a better idea.

There is a section of V9 of the BRCGS Food Standard that does apply if you have RA or RSPO - section 5.4.5 which requires you do a traceability  test every 6 months in the absence of a more scheme specific requirement. We picked up an NCR on this a few years ago as we did the RSPO trace/mass balance once per year (as per RSPO requirements) but our auditor reckoned it should be done twice as the BRC requirement was for more tests than the RSPO. 

 

The RA does look daunting at first but not all of it will apply to your site. As you are based in Germany most of the social requirements will probably not apply to you for example. I have forgotten the full details as it was a few months since I did it but after registering with the RA you do a risk assessment based on what and how much you use and what you do with it (so buy cocoa and use it in products I guess). You then get a risk rating and depending on this a decision on whether an audit is needed and also a list of all the clauses you need to satisfy. I found it to be quite confusing at first as the rules kept changing throughout 2021 and 2022 as they developed the new UTZ/RA standard but in the end it was not too difficult. 

Thanks- so we just need to register and do a risk assessment?
What is the cost?
😊
Does it require that all of our cocoa products come with RA certification? Thanks.

You have to just act like I am clueless because I am 🙈🙈

Broadly yes you register and complete the risk assessment tool. There is a Get Started button on their website https://www.rainfore...-certification/

There are 2 types of cost: the premium applied to RA certified cocoa products (no idea what that is) and the cost of an audit which for us was about £2000.

We use the Mass Balance version of RA (all that our customers require) so we do not buy all cocoa products as RA. We buy a small number of our larger volumes as RA and use mass balance to cover the requirements for those customers who want RA.  Not all of our customers want RA.

We used to be UTZ certified so had to balance cocoa mass, powder and butter separately but with RA it appears all you need to do is balance total cocoa solids

There is a section of V9 of the BRCGS Food Standard that does apply if you have RA or RSPO - section 5.4.5 which requires you do a traceability  test every 6 months in the absence of a more scheme specific requirement. We picked up an NCR on this a few years ago as we did the RSPO trace/mass balance once per year (as per RSPO requirements) but our auditor reckoned it should be done twice as the BRC requirement was for more tests than the RSPO. 

 

The RA does look daunting at first but not all of it will apply to your site. As you are based in Germany most of the social requirements will probably not apply to you for example. I have forgotten the full details as it was a few months since I did it but after registering with the RA you do a risk assessment based on what and how much you use and what you do with it (so buy cocoa and use it in products I guess). You then get a risk rating and depending on this a decision on whether an audit is needed and also a list of all the clauses you need to satisfy. I found it to be quite confusing at first as the rules kept changing throughout 2021 and 2022 as they developed the new UTZ/RA standard but in the end it was not too difficult. 

 

You are correct, thank you for pointing that out. 

Thanks - is an audit always required - it seems that the audit cost it significant? 

Thanks - is an audit always required - it seems that the audit cost it significant? 

No sure if it's standard practice, but they didn't conduct an in person facility audit.  We sent in some documents for review.  At that time, it wasn't intense in any way.  Nothing stands out about the trace as well.  It was pretty straight forward.  They may have updated their systems or process since then.  I'm not sure what the cost was.

Thanks everyone. 😊
It's much appreciated

If we are a final producer, wanting to show the seal on our products - do we still need supply chain certification? Or is supply chain only relevant for companies that are intermediates?

Thanks in advance.