Food from good hands

The eligibility of delivery can be checked on the QS website. To do this, go to www.qs-plattform.de/QSSoftware/search.html and click Search: Agriculture/Production. There you can enter your QS-ID or your QS location number and click the button Search. If your company is eligible to deliver, it appears with the corresponding production scope (e.g. outdoor vegetable production) or the approved crops and the registered certification system (e.g. QS-GAP). The name and address of your company will not be displayed.

As a producer you will participate automatically in the QS residue monitoring through your coordinator. He organises sampling, which can take place either on the horticultural location in the presence of or with the agreement of the manager or, in the case of delivery to the market, after delivery to the buyer (e.g. wholesaler, producer organisation). A sampling by the producer himself or employees is not permitted. The samples must always be taken from fruit, vegetables and potatoes that are ready for harvest and respectively sale. The coordinator also ensures that the data are entered into the QS database.

Participating in the residue monitoring is regardless of whether you participate via a QS audit or an approved audit (e.g. GlobalG.A.P.) in the QS scheme.

You participate in the QS scheme via a so-called coordinator. These are for example producer organizations, agencies or consulting companies. You will find a list of all coordinators here.

You can choose between being audited against the QS production standard or the QS-GAP standard. With a QS-GAP audit you concurrently meet the GlobalG.A.P. requirements. Due to mutual recognitions with other standards, participating in the QS scheme is also possible with a GlobalG.A.P., Vegaplan- or AMAG.A.P.-certification.

Since January 2020, QS goods in the QS supply chain fruit, vegetables and potatoes must be labelled with an identification number of the producer deposited in the QS database. In certain cases, an identification number of the packing location deposited in the QS database can be used instead of the producer number.

The labelling can be done either directly on the label of the goods (or box label) or in the delivery notes/accompanying documents.

The following figure clearly shows the requirement (Please click on the picture to enlarge).

The requirements for sampling are described in the Guideline Residue Monitoring (chapter 5). At the production stage, it is particularly important that sampling is organised by the coordinator. Sampling by the producer himself, an employee of the producer or a third person/organisation commissioned by the producer is not permitted.

For the producers/location that need to be sampled, the coordinator will be notified by sampling requests in the QS database. Within one year the sampling and analysis for the selected producer must be carried out according to the QS standards. The respective product of sampling needs to be selected from the certified products of the producer’s location and according to the risk group of the control plan.