Private certification isn ‟ t needed to show compliance with legal requirements. Any private certification scheme for the agricultural and food sector must remain voluntary. Where operators employ certification of compliance with basic requirements in order to facilitate transactions with other actors along the food chain, it should be clear that this practice cannot be used to differentiate products in the market.
Certification schemes have benefits:
� to intermediate actors in the food supply chain, by assuring standards and thereby
protecting liability and reputation for product and label claims;
� to producers, by increasing market access, market share and product margins for certified products and also, potentially, by increasing efficiency and reducing transaction costs;
� to consumers, by providing reliable and trustworthy information on product and process attributes.
PDO / PGI / Organic labels represent a little sample of product certification schemes. Other opportunities are represented by IFS, BRC, Traceability( ISO 22005) and voluntary schemes to build according to the needs of the stakeholders.
‣ Tasks for participants to complete before Session 6
1. Continue with the marketing materials, marketing plan and marketing the social start up.
2. Continue populating the Cashflow Template and finalizing the Financial Tools
4. Complete the Financial Tools: cost benefit analysis, break even analysis, operational gearing, pricing.
5. Finalize the production plan and implement it.
6. Prepare a presentation on theproduction plan and its implementation to update the mentor in Session 6.
� Evaluation of Session 5
Please give the participants a couple of minutes to complete the checklist individually in their business diaries. When they have completed this, discuss the following points:
1. What they learnt from this session? 2. What worked well in this session?
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