Traceability and Certification Exception for Select Banana and Fresh Fruit Certificate Holders

What is this document about?

This policy exception has been developed to streamline the traceability reporting process, allowing offshore supply chain actors to be exempted from traceability and to simplify the certification process within these sectors.

When and how to use this document?

Supply Chain Actors that meet the definition of ‘offshore company’ as outlined below shall use this document to demonstrate their exempt status from certification and traceability reporting.

Certification and Traceability Exception

Select certificate holders in Banana and Fresh Fruit have been granted an exception to the Rainforest Alliance Online Traceability Platform and our Rainforest Alliance 2020 Certification Program. Details on the scope of the exception and applicable Certificate Holders are below.  

1. Outline of Exception

Supply Chain actors that meet the definition of offshore companies are exempted from maintaining and reporting traceability in the Rainforest Alliance online platform. In addition, these actors are exempted from achieving Rainforest Alliance Certification.  

In this context, offshore companies are defined as supply chain actors that are established in a country outside of where they do most of their business, often for tax reasons. They may legally own the certified product but are located outside of both the producer and consuming countries for that supply chain and don’t physically handle or transform the product.

To enable offshore companies to be exempt from traceability, the Rainforest Alliance will enter transactions in the Rainforest Alliance traceability platform on behalf of certificate holders who sell through offshore companies, according to data provided by certificate holders. In terms of the audit, if there is an issue aligning the transactions that have been entered into the platform with the volumes sold by the certificate holder, the certification body can consult Rainforest Alliance for support in evaluating the transactions.

2. Implications of the Exception

Offshore companies are not required to be certified or perform online traceability. Therefore, online traceability reporting shall be established between the farm certificate holder and the next certified supply chain actor, e.g. importers/exporters. Farm certificate holders may report outgoing transactions to the next certified supply chain actor or use the ‘mandated trade partner’s functionality to allow supply chain actors to report on their behalf. Reporting shall be done as outlined in section 2.2 of the supply chain requirements by individual transactions or submitted via excel upload to the Rainforest Alliance Traceability Platform.  

Other information

Date of first publication of this document (v 1.0): April 5^th 2024.

Documents indicated as “binding” must be complied with for certification. Documents indicated as “non-binding” provide non-mandatory information to help readers understand and implement requirements and other binding content.

Translation Disclaimer

For any question related to the precise meaning of the information in a translation, consult the official English version for clarification. Any errors or differences in meaning due to translation are not binding and have no effect for auditing or certification purposes.

Reproduction, modification, distribution, or republication of this content is strictly forbidden without prior written consent from Rainforest Alliance.

More information?

For help in obtaining a Rainforest Alliance certificate reach out to our Customer Success team at customersuccess@ra.org

For more information about Rainforest Alliance, visit http://www.rainforest-alliance.org contact info@ra.org or the Rainforest Alliance Amsterdam Office, De Ruijterkade 6, 1013AA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.