Apply to include non-organic ingredients in an organic product you're selling.

How to apply

In your application, you must include:
written evidence that you’ve searched the EU market for an organic form of the ingredient and couldn’t find one
an explanation as to why you need to use the particular ingredient in non-organic form and why you can’t use an organic substitute
copies of letters or emails from at least 3 potential suppliers of the ingredient, confirming they can’t supply the ingredient in organic form or find it on the EU market

You can only apply if your:
non-organic ingredient is a single ingredient, not made up of 2 or more different items

product doesn’t contain any additives or processing aids apart from these EU-approved additive and aids

Apply for non-organic ingredient authorisation

You must use a separate application for each non-organic ingredient you want to use.

You must pay a non-refundable ￡38 for each application. You’ll get an invoice from Defra.

Non-organic ingredients you can use in organic food without applying for permission

You can use a maximum of 5% of EU-approved non-organic ingredients in an organic food product. For example, for a product containing grain, fruit, oil, sugar and water, plus a permitted processing aid, 2% of non-organic berries might be permitted.

In this example, you must calculate the organic grain, organic fruit, organic sugar and organic oil, and the non-organic berries. The whole should add up to 100%, with the non-organic berries being no more than 5% of that total.

You can’t include water and processing aids or any non-agricultural ingredient such as salt in your calculations. However, you should list these non-agricultural ingredients in your application form.

You must not use organic and non-organic forms of the same ingredient in an organic product.