BOPP (The British Ornamental Plant Producers Certification Scheme)
The Ornamental Plant Producers Scheme was developed in the mid-90’s to provide a certification scheme that would give customers reassurance that their suppliers were meeting certain criteria with respect to legal, environmental and quality requirements.
BOPP as an organisation is now a Limited Company, comprising a Board of Directors and a Technical Advisory Committee, with representatives from all sectors of the industry.
Rebecca Grant, our Special Projects Manager, runs the BOPP scheme for Rochfords and holds a position on the Board and Technical Advisory Committee.
The Scheme aims to set high standards of professionalism in the way in which certificated businesses operate and through unbiased and effective evaluation, by a UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) Accredited Certification Body, to ensure standards are maintained. The ultimate objective is to ensure that customers can have complete confidence in both product and service when dealing with BOPP Certificated suppliers.
The scheme is UKAS registered and benchmarked to GlobalGAP.
www.bopp.org.uk
What does BOPP cover?
Suppliers are certificated once they can demonstrate that their business practices are in accordance with the BOPP standard. The standards cover the following areas:
- Strategic issues - company policies, health and safety, pesticide use, reducing environmental impact, training, site security and risk management.
- Production issues - hygiene, pest, disease and weed control, plant nutritional management, planning and production, quality control and specifications.
- Customer requirement issues - labeling, traceability, delivery, customer queries and corrective procedures.
BOPP at Rochfords
Rochfords joined BOPP summer 2003. We passed our first audit held in May 2004, and since this time have remained a full certificated member. The BOPP audit methodology encourages continuous improvement of the business and its policies. Audits are held, at short notice, every 6months. This ensures the standards achieved are maintained.
BOPP, as a grower based scheme, presented a practical framework for us to work with. The Standards cover the whole business and have encouraged us to record and develop how the whole company operates. It is a practical management tool which ensures legal and environmental aspects are reviewed and kept up to date.
Continuous development is key to BOPP, and to any business that wants to improve in this ever changing industry.