Most importing governments need official assurances from the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) for any live animals and germplasm being exported from New Zealand. The Official Assurance Program (OAP) gives importing governments confidence that any animal material, including live animals and germplasm (semen and embryos) from New Zealand meets the import requirements for those markets.

Before it can issue an official assurance, MPI needs to verify any claims made on the assurance. For exporting live animals and germplasm, MPI does this through:

LEAF Marque is an environmental assurance system recognising sustainably farmed products such as fruit and vegetables, cereals, beef and lamb, horticulture, dairy, poultry and viticulture. Produce identified with a LEAF Marque logo indicates it has been through an assurance scheme that means it has been produced by farmers whilst caring for the environment.

The scheme operates through the delegation of authority by the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to authorised Independent Verification Agencies (IVAs) to provide certification services for exports of plant and forest products. MPI uses IVAs to provide information and services for exporters including destination country requirements, ePhyto requests and verification, phytosanitary inspection, and pest surveys.

GLOBALG.A.P. is an international scheme for farm production whose goal is safe and sustainable agricultural production to benefit farmers, retailers and consumers throughout the world.

GLOBALG.A.P. Certification covers:

The FSSC 22000 certification scheme was developed and is maintained by the Board of Stakeholders of the Foundation for Food Safety Certification, based in the Netherlands. The aim of the Foundation is to provide a certification scheme which has broad acceptance, through adding value to the relationship between the certified food organizations and those around it such as the government, customers and suppliers.

The scheme is based on certifications which demonstrate an organisation’s ability to exercise adequate hazard control in order to ensure the safety of food and feed industries.  There are various standards recognised under this scheme, each based on CODEX Alimentarius Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles.

In response to industry needs, the BRC Food Technical Standard was developed in 1998 to evaluate manufacturers of retailers’ own-brand food products. This standard was adopted by other organisations in the sector in the UK and across the world.