Steviva Ingredients Earns Organic Certification
Steviva Ingredients (Portland, OR), maker of all-natural sweeteners and sweetening systems, recently announced it has earned organic certification under the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) National Organic Program (NOP) for its Portland SQF Level 2 manufacturing facility.
“Through the USDA Organic Certification process, we have established organic production and handling systems to complement our current rigorous food-safety management systems,” said Yishu Hou, quality and document control specialist at Steviva Ingredients. “By earning organic certification, we will be able to meet our customers’ needs for organic ingredients and also foster development of new opportunities within the ever-growing organic market.”
“In the past six months, we have been awarded a SQF Level 2 certificate and most recently, organic certification from Oregon Tilth,” said Thom King, president and CEO of Steviva Ingredients. “This gives us the ability to not only deliver sweetening systems in both conventional and organic forms to our manufacturing customers, but it also allows us to co-pack and private-label our entire line of sweeteners and sweetening systems for big-box retail stores. Additionally, we can deliver these clean-label organic sweetening systems in any particle size to our co-packing and private-label customers. I know of no other sweetener supplier that has this capability.”
Certified products include:
- Erysweet Erythritol: Erysweet, Erysweet 100, Erysweet+, Erysweet+ 100, Erysweet+ Ultra
- SteviaSweet RA98 Stevia Extract
- SteviaSweet 95-60 Stevia Extract
The certification was awarded by accredited organic certifying agency Oregon Tilth Certified Organic (OTCO) following rigorous on-site inspections of Steviva’s facility, materials, processing and handling. In order to maintain its organic certification, Steviva must continue to adhere to the strict national standards of organic products as outlined by the NOP.
In September 2016, the company earned its Safe Quality Food (SQF) Level 2 certification. Administered by the Food Marketing Institute and recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative, SQF is a food-safety management system that focuses on the verification and validation of stringent food-safety and quality systems throughout the food supply chain.
For more information, visit www.stevivaingredients.com or www.steviva.com.