Worldwide checks in the interests of quality
Apart from some agricultural products such as milk or meat, Switzerland has little in the way of raw materials and therefore has always depended on imports. This is a growing trend that requires new quality-assurance instruments. The goal is internationally recognized standards for products and processes. Checks and audits are performed by independent monitoring organizations which document the safety and quality of the products. Coop works with a number of organizations in this field:
bioinspecta has been commissioned by Coop to audit compliance with Bio Suisse guidelines on crop production in both Switzerland and abroad.
On behalf of Coop, the Swiss animal-welfare organization STS monitors livestock-rearing and feeding practices on the Naturaplan farms by carrying out unannounced inspections and collecting feed samples.
The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) of the CIES* audits and recognizes internationally applied food-safety standards. Businesses that meet these standards are deemed to be reliable partners with regard to food safety. Coop is a member of the GFSI and gives preference to producers that apply these standards (for instance, the International Food Standard/IFS or the British Retail Consortium/BRC Standards) and which have them regularly audited by impartial, accredited monitoring organizations.

The following standards are recognized (situation in 2008):
  • International Food Standard  (IFS)
  • British Retail Consortium Standards  (BRC)
  • HACCP Code of the Netherlands (Dutch HACCP)
(*CIES: retail-oriented global food-business network comprising over 200 retailers from 50 countries and a similar number of suppliers from all over the world)
The Global Partnership for Good Agricultural Practice has drawn up a set of principles for monitoring "Good Agricultural Practices" (GAP). These GLOBALGAP standards not only lay down production-specific requirements, they also take social and ecological aspects into account.

Coop requires its business partners to comply with GLBOALGAP standards in the fruit & vegetables sector and supports their application to flowers and ornamentals and to aquaculture.

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