Product certification for Black tea

Lalith Senaweera [Director General/CEO - Sri Lanka Standards Institution]

Sri Lanka being an agro-based country, much emphasis has been given to the cultivation of tea, rubber and coconut products.

Out of these products, ‘Ceylon Tea’ or ‘Sri Lankan Tea’ has gained recognition and acceptance in the world markets and it became one of the largest industries in Sri Lanka generating the highest foreign exchange to the Country.

Sri Lankan tea is categorized into three groups: Upcountry (Udarata), Mid country (Medarata), and Low country (Pahatha rata) tea, based on the geography of the land on which it is grown.

Sri Lanka has been producing and exporting tea to many countries since 18th century and most of the tea factories were built by the British during their times and those are renovated and repaired later on from time to time by the relevant authorities.

Tea is an essential item of domestic consumption and is the major beverage in Sri Lanka. Tea is considered as the cheapest beverage amongst the beverages available in Sri Lanka.

Tea Industry provides gainful direct employment to more than a million workers. Plantations companies managing the estates have been making efforts to improve worker welfare and working conditions in recent years and that estate workers are given free housing and health care so that the productivity of the tea plantation can be improved.

Some of the tea factories have completely redone or upgraded to suit modern day requirements and some are still looking forward to do such changes as such improvements are required to strengthen the industry and to face challenges taking place in the external environment.

The major competitive countries in tea in the world are Kenya, India, China and Indonesia. China is the major producer of green tea while Sri Lanka and Indonesia are producing mainly orthodox varieties of tea.

Kenya is basically a CTC tea producing country, while Sri Lanka is facing competition from India and Indonesia with regard to export of orthodox teas and from China with regard to green tea export, it is facing competition from Kenya and from other African countries in exporting CTC teas.

Main buyers of Sri Lankan tea are USA, Britain, European countries, China, Iran and Iraq.

The tea factories in most tea estates in Sri Lanka are crucial to the final quality and value of manufactured tea. After plucking the tea is quickly taken to the muster sheds to be weighed and monitored under close supervision, and then the teas are brought to the factory. For instance, the cost of tea production is one of the factors that have to be considered by the local manufacturers and therefore one of the important things is to cut down waste by improving the quality of the tea production process.

Because of the stiff competition taking place, the plantation companies have initiated quality improvement programs as a measure to cut down waste whilst improving the quality of tea.

Quality improvement programs

Almost all the plantation companies in Sri Lanka have considered the necessity of having suitable quality improvement programs within the factories and as a result these companies have initiated action to implement Internationally recognized systems based programs like ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems, ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems, ISO 22000 Food Safety Systems, HACCP, Five S programs and Rain Force Alliance.

However, all of these programs focus on systems and not on the final product, therefore, it is imperative to have a scheme to determine the characteristics of the final product quality in order to ensure that the tea is ‘clean’ and assured high quality which is a pre-requisite for many countries to buy tea.

Considering this important fact, Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) being the regulatory and authorized body in Sri Lanka had decided to introduce a scheme in association with the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) to cover this vacuum and as a result a Product Certification scheme has been introduced with the blessings of the Government in order to provide a third party guarantee for final product quality of Sri Lankan tea, so that the industry can restore its historical image as the worlds’ number source of quality tea.

Difference between systems and product certification

Systems Certifications such as ISO 22000, HACCP, GMP, ISO 9001 are basically covers the activities, functions or practices of any organization focusing on the relevant processes.

In other words, Systems Certification ensures that practices of an organization are standardized by establishing a documented system including Manuals, procedures, work instructions and relevant forms.

This would help any organization to manufacture products or to provide services in a consistent manner.

However, a product certification scheme would give more emphasis on the product and therefore, final product testing is a mandatory component of any product certification scheme in addition to have a documented system.

For instance, under a product certification scheme the final tea product shall required to be tested for parameters like pesticides and heavy metals residues in addition to chemical and microbiological parameters against the applicable International standard but which is not a requirement for any systems based certification.

Therefore, a product certification gives a higher assurance than a systems certification and as a result, major overseas buyers or customers prefer to have product certification than the systems certification especially when it comes to a popular product like ‘tea’ where there are internationally and nationally recognized standards are available.

If the tea industry is really committed to demonstrate that they manufacture ‘clean tea’ the only way out is to obtain the ‘Product certification mark’.

Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI)

As the national Standards Body in Sri Lanka, SLSI provides quality services at very competitive rates and is backed by its long service record of being in the certification, inspection and testing business for over 40 years.

SLSI is supported by a large pool of technically competent, well qualified and experienced professionals.

With a total of about 50 lead auditors/auditors, mostly full-time auditors, they can provide auditing services covering a wide range of economic activities.

Almost all these professionals are also well trained to be multi-skilled thus are competent to carry out audits of integrated schemes for example an ISO 9000/ISO 14001/OHSAS 18001 covering product certification audits.

Likewise, the tests are conducted to national and international standards using up-to-date testing facilities operated by competent staff.

As a Government Institution, SLSI fulfills its role in assisting not only the Sri Lankan industries in enhancing their quality and competitiveness in the global marketplace but also the regulatory authorities in enforcing regulations relating to public health and safety and the preservation of the environment.

For instance, SLSI operates an Import Inspection Scheme covering 103 products as mandatory products under the Import and Export Act where those products when imported to the country are subjected to stringent quality tests before releasing it to the market.

SLSI operates a Product Certification Scheme as per the ISO Guide 65, where the final product quality is assured by having a stringent quality tests as per the applicable standards and under this scheme over 400 Permits have been issued covering different products including food, chemical material, engineering etc and those products carry the product certification mark - ‘SLS mark’- on the product.

This mark has gained the recognition and acceptance not only within the Sri Lankan consumers but also among the overseas buyers as SLS mark has been granted to factories based in China, India, Singapore, UAE, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia and requests have been received by many other countries.

SLSI has noted that the demand for ‘SLS’ has been increasing and SLSI is taking every effort to cater to the increasing demand.

SLSI/SLTB product certification scheme for tea

With the increasing trend world-wide for the need for food products to be certified for quality, specially from the health point of view and tea being classified as a food, tea products carrying a product certification assuring quality enjoy better marketability in the presently highly competitive field of tea-marketing as evidenced by major overseas customers especially Japanese, Middle Eastern and European buyers already requesting certification of levels of ‘pesticide and heavy metal residues’ in tea, in keeping with acceptable standard requirements.

Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) coming under the purview of then Plantation Industries Ministry considered that there is a strong need for a nationally sponsored product quality certification scheme for tea, to ensure that Ceylon Tea continues to be purchased by the more sophisticated segments of the market, which pay a premium price for a ‘certified ‘product, in addition to the traditional clients.

With this objective, as a ‘way-forward’, Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) has sought the services of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) to develop a Product Certification Scheme for Tea.

The Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) and the Sri Lanka Tea Board(SLTB) using their expertise and experience and considering the Tea industry requirements have designed and developed a unique Product Certification Scheme known as ‘SLSI/SLTB Product Certification Scheme’ especially to cater to the tea industry and to provide the benefits to the industry with the prime intention of improving the quality of final tea product whilst paving the way to enter into new markets by overcoming non tariff barriers.

SLSI/SLTB Product Certification Scheme operates in an impartial, non-discriminatory and transparent manner.

The Scheme is essentially voluntary in nature and is largely based on ISO Guide 65, which provides general rules for third party certification of determining conformity with product standards through initial testing and assessment of a factory management system and its acceptance followed by surveillance visits.

This scheme has three main steps namely adequacy audit, on-site assessment and surveillance and each of the said steps has been designed by incorporating the relevant requirements of Internationally accepted principles in order to ensure that the scheme would really provide the required benefits to the relevant producers and consumers whilst gaining the international recognition.

Under this scheme, SLSI will appoint a competent and impartial audit team to conduct the on-site assessment, surveillance audits and also to draw representative samples from the relevant products for testing purposes.

The certification programs will be managed by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.

Accreditation

Accreditation provides confidence in the credibility and competence of SLSI as a provider of certification, inspection and testing services. The certification, inspection and testing services of SLSI comply with national and international standards and guides like ISO IEC Guides 62, 65, and ISO IEC 17020.

SLSI has been accredited for ISO 9000, ISO 14001, ISO 22000/HACCP by the Dutch Council for Accreditation (RvA), and the Netherlands National Accreditation Body and also by, the Sri Lankan Accreditation Board (SLAB). Currently, three of the six testing laboratories of SLSI are also accredited to ISO IEC 17025 by the Swedish Accreditation Board (SWEDAC) and by the Sri Lankan Accreditation Board (SLAB) while the remaining three are in the process of gaining accreditation.

All these accreditation demonstrate the impartiality of the organizational arrangements, competence of staff and the effectiveness of the management system of SLSI certification and Laboratory testing services.

Three accredited laboratories can test food, chemical, microbiological requirements of tea and SLSI wishes to obtain the services of other local and overseas accredited laboratories services to carry out the pesticide residue tests of the tea samples collected for certification services.

SLSI/SLTB product certification mark

On completion of a satisfactory result of on-site assessment and satisfactory results of the samples, a summary report will be submitted to a Governing Board for approval of granting certification.

The Governing Board comprises of high officials from SLSI and SLTB and the board reviews the reports to make a decision. Under the SLSI/SLTB product certification marks scheme permits are granted to tea manufacturing factories for affixing the product certification mark (as given above) on their products confirming to the standards stated above.

The SLSI/SLTB product certification mark denotes that the Tea products meet the requirements of specific standards, applicable regulatory requirements, technical requirements and certification requirements.

This ensures that the buyers can purchase these products with a reasonable guarantee as a means of providing third party assurance of quality, and safety and effectively instilling confidence without the need for additional testing and further proof.

In order to ensure that the certified product quality is maintained by the factories, regular and surprise surveillance inspections are carried out and samples will be collected from the manufacturing line and the open market for testing against the applicable standards.

The SLSI/SLTB product certification mark will assure that the quality of the final product meets the requirements of the applicable standards and the certified factory is in a position to manufacture black tea consistently conforming to the relevant requirements.

Therefore the certified factories apply the mark on their products demonstrate that those products can be purchased with an acceptable quality and safety as the products are tested for pesticide residue, heavy metals and microbiological parameters.