Woolworths Organic Spinach Withdrawn after TOPIC Investigation

Woolworths organic vegetables under the spotlight
TOPIC (Testing of Products Initiated by Consumers) is a consumer-led organisation funded by consumers and retailers that are committed to transparency. We use laboratory testing, farm and factory visits and any other means necessary to verify that ingredients and label claims are accurate.

At the end of March this year, the TOPIC SA team launched into its eighth investigation to verify that Woolworth’s organic vegetables were truly organic and pesticide-free.

Why Woolworths?
Since 2015, consumers have nominated numerous Woolworth’s organic vegetables such as courgettes, corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes and spinach, and have queried whether the produce is pesticide-free, irradiated, chlorine-washed or sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate. The most nominated concern was whether the produce was pesticide-free, so we focused on this label claim.

Two nominated products that are still available in this Woolworths range are their organic sweet potatoes and organic baby spinach which are labelled with the BCS Öko-Garantie logo, a global organic certifier. The two farms that grow the produce are certified under the European Organic Regulations (EC) No 834/2007.

Engaging with Woolworths
Our initial letter was sent to Woolworths on the 20th March and, unlike previous investigations, the retailer’s responses to us have been very slow in coming and sometimes unclear.

Nearly two months later on the 14th May, we received a substantive response from Woolworths to our questions with organic certification documents. They stated that supplying certified organic products was part of their Good Food Journey and that the organic status is verified and certified by independent certification organisations whose logo is displayed on the product packaging as part of the customer guarantee.

We responded to Woolworths on the 22nd May with more questions and after several promptings Woolworths agreed to meet with us on 6th of August 2018.

Timeline of events: sweet potatoes
Certification documents from Woolworths show that their sweet potatoes were certified organic until the 30th of April 2018.

The TOPIC team purchased Woolworths organic sweet potatoes on the 8th of May, eight days after expiration of the certificate. The produce was immediately submitted for testing at a SANAS accredited laboratory.

Timeline of events: spinach
According to Woolworths documents, the specific farm where the spinach is cultivated was due for an inspection from the certifier (BCS) in September 2017 as the spinach organic certification expired on the 30th November 2017. In December that year, BCS wrote to the farm to extend the certification until 28th February 2018, despite no inspection having been done.

The TOPIC team purchased Woolworths organic baby spinach on the 7th of April, five weeks after the extension period for the organic certificate expired. The produce was sent for testing.

An inspection was eventually done on 16th April 2018 and we were provided with the latest certificate at our follow-up meeting with Woolworths on 27 August. This current certificate expires in November 2018.

Feedback from the organic certifier BCS
Kiwa BCS has been doing inspections in South Africa since 1998. TOPIC received the following feedback from their local representative Ralph Peckover: “Under the European Union (EU) certification scheme, the farms must be inspected yearly to keep their organic certified status.”

“The yearly inspection looks at all the practices carried out for compliance and actually looks at the last year’s details. One can ask for an extension of three months on top of this expiry date and in exceptional cases for another three months. At the later inspection then all aspects would be looked at for the 15 months or 18 months,” he said.

According to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM), the global umbrella organisation for the organic agriculture movement: “Certificate extensions can happen once in a while when the certifier has problems to get the inspection scheduled in an appropriate time. As long as the certifier has made an arrangement and there is a record of it, it should be ok, but this should not be a perpetual event. If I were a trader I would insist on a written statement from the certifier about the extension, and would not buy based on a certificate that is expired”.

Response from another retailer
We spoke to Wellness Warehouse and asked them about their policy regarding organic certification. They replied with the following: “When we list a new organic product we store the supplier’s certifications in a database. For each supplier a record is kept of when the certification expires. Once the new certificate is required we follow up with the supplier to request their latest certifications.” The health and wellness retailer stipulates that they “request the updated certification in advance to do our best to ensure that there is no gap between renewal of certifications.”

What did the lab tests show?

No detectable pesticide residues were reported on the Woolworths organic sweet potatoes.

Low amounts of four different residues were found on Woolworths organic baby spinach.

What do these residues mean?

Firstly, it should be noted that not all of these chemicals are problematic in terms of organic certification. Secondly, the levels found are very low. We describe below each of these chemicals in turn, and then compare the levels found to the maximum residue levels (MRLs) allowed.

Azadirachtin
This pesticide is allowed in organic farming according to the European Union (EU) regulations and has no restrictions.

According to global organic certifier Ecocert, it is allowed if it is a natural extract from the Neem tree, but is not allowed when it is synthetically manufactured. Auditors need to check invoices to check where the farm is buying Azadirachtin from.

Azadirachtin biodegrades within a few days and is considered to be of low toxicity to mammals.

Fluopyram
Fluopyram is a highly persistent phenylamide fungicide and is not allowed in organic agriculture. Manufactured by Bayer Crop Science, it is used on various mildews and is considered a hazard to aquatic environments. Fluopyram based products are usually used for grapes, berries, fruit and tomatoes but not for spinach. We have no information as to how this might have got onto the spinach, although possible mechanisms would include contamination drift from a nearby field or during harvesting and processing.

According to the certifier BCS: “There should be no pesticides not listed on the official allowable list but in Europe a limit between customers is at 0.01ppm or lower for only one pesticide not listed.” This was confirmed by another global organic certifier operating in South Africa, Ecocert, who stated that any disallowed products in organic agriculture, such as fluopyram, should be present at concentrations of less than 0.01mg/kg (ppm). The amount of Fluopyram found was 0.0079mg/kg.

Piperonyl Butoxide
Piperonyl Butoxide (PBO) is a synergist used in conjunction with pesticides to make them work more efficiently. According to EU organic regulations, PBO as a synergist is allowed but not as the active. In contrast, the SAOSA standard specifies that “The synergist Piperonyl Butoxide is prohibited.”

PBO is moderately toxic to fish. According to some international organic standards bodies it may not be used at all on organic crops, whereas other bodies do allow it.

Spinosad
This pesticide is allowed in organic farming without restrictions, as long as it is the natural product and not genetically modified or synthetic. Spinosad originates from the soil bacterium Saccharopolyspora spinosa and is used to control mites, fruit flies and other insects.

Are these chemicals approved for use in South Africa?
In South Africa, pesticides are registered by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) and then Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) are set by the Department of Health (DoH).

DAFF confirmed that only spinosad is registered for use in SA and not the other three actives. We were further told that “the registration of actives on crops may change (be updated) always as and when the actives are registered on crops. Currently we (DAFF) are still working on compiling a list of all registered actives. In the meantime you may please see the AVCASA website for lists of registered actives on various commodities.”

The AVCASA website list is currently down. As a follow-up we asked how long they had been working on compiling this list, and when it was planned to be complete, but to-date have received no reply.

Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs)
South Africa does not have any official regulations for organic farming and the certifier for Woolworths organic vegetables (BCS) follows the EU organic regulations.

According to IFOAM, organic farming allows “pesticides developed by nature automatically” and “unless there is a government MRL for these (organic pesticides), there are none. The few organic pesticides allowed break down quickly, so this is not an issue in the market.”

BCS informed us that “any EU regulation, which most clients use here in South Africa, will be more strict than any South African regulations, but will still have to comply with local requirements.”
As mentioned, spinosad is the only active on the South African MRL list and it therefore has a local MRL. As no MRL is set for the other actives, the default is to use the EU MRLs.

MRLs for spinach and baby leaf crops
*for baby leaf crops
**0.2mg/kg for spinach

Response from Woolworths
Once we managed to arrange a meeting with Woolworths, they responded to all our questions and provided us with supporting paperwork… up to a point.

Don’t mind the gap…
According to Woolworths and the organic certifier, BCS KIWA, the expiry date on the organic certification has no significance. They consider a certificate to be valid even after it has expired, unless they are specifically contacted by the farm and told that the certification has been withdrawn. Woolworths does not get involved in the organic certification process at all, and leaves that process to be handled between the farmer and the organic certifier.

According to the certifier’s own protocol as per a note on the certificates, “the inspection should be conducted not later than two months before the expiry of the certificate.” Woolworths reported that they checked the issue of the expiry date with BCS KIWA and the organic certifier indicated that they were not concerned.

Contamination in question
Woolworths explained that although Fluopyram was used on the same farm on conventional (non-organic) tomatoes, it is applied as a drench directly to the soil, and so they could not see how it could have contaminated the organic spinach crop, even in low amounts. There is only one farm which supplies Woolworths with baby organic spinach, so they were certain of the origin. They believed the most likely explanation was an error in the process at the laboratory, and that the reported results were incorrect. Woolworths also questioned whether the laboratory was accredited specifically to test spinach.

The laboratory response…
Contacted for response to the above, the laboratory representative responded:

1. Hortec is accredited according to ISO17025:2005 by SANAS for pesticide residue analysis and leafy vegetables are included in our scope of accreditation.
2. For most pesticides Hortec can test down to 0.005mg/kg which is in line with European laboratories. For this reason Hortec uses state of the art laboratory equipment and have sufficient procedures in place to prevent contamination. Due to the sample being labelled as organic it was tested a second time on another instrument in order to confirm the presence of the pesticides initially detected and to rule out any errors.

PBO explained
With regards to Piperonyl Butoxide, Woolworths provided a copy of the label of an organic pesticide used at the farm where the organic spinach is grown, called KangroShield 100, which contains this substance, mixed with canola oil, garlic extract and pyrethrins extracted from Chrysanthemum flower.

Woolworths testing policy
Woolworths also explained that they employ an independent company to select products at random and send them to a laboratory in Europe for testing. This has been done twice for organic baby spinach since the start of the year (2018), and Woolworths provided us with copies of the results of both tests.

These results showed no detectable residues of any substance above 0.010ppm, not even of the pesticides known to be in use at the specific farm.

Second Woolworths meeting
Three weeks later on the 27th of August, TOPIC met with Woolworths again and the retailer confirmed that they visited the farm where the organic baby spinach was grown and said that it was unlikely that the spinach was contaminated. Regarding the potential lab “error”, Woolworths questioned whether Fluopyram was found on all samples analysed by the lab that day and whether Hortec still has retention samples to retest.

Related to the organic certification, Woolworths showed TOPIC the new BCS KIWA organic certificate for the baby spinach which was issued on 21 August and is valid until 30 November 2018. It is unclear why the certification expires so soon after being issued.

According to Woolworths, the farmers get frustrated by the certification process because they have to wait for new inspections. The retailer now has a new system that they are implementing that will flag certificates that are approaching their expiry dates. They are adamant that they are “not ok with expired certificates.”

Woolworths also sent samples of their organic baby spinach to different labs and promised to share the results once they were received.

Further comments from Woolworths
In a surprising turn of events, despite several requests, Woolworths decided they were not willing to share the results of the new lab tests, despite previously promising that they would do so.

In response to our questions about the new test results, a Woolworths spokesperson was only prepared to say: “Following our meetings with TOPIC, we have had further product tested for pesticide residues. We are not satisfied with the results that we have received, and have consequently stopped production of our organic baby spinach”.

“We appreciate the issues TOPIC has raised with us and we will resume production once we are satisfied with the results.”

They further wrote: “Whilst Woolworths did not provide TOPIC with the lab analysis report, we did share the result outcome with TOPIC – as indicated, we were dissatisfied with the results and have stopped production. As with any unexpected or out of spec result, Woolworths investigates and takes appropriate action.”

Unfortunately, this means we can only speculate as to what was found in the test results. We don’t know if the tests confirmed the presence of Fluopyram as found in the sample tested by TOPIC, or if their results were even worse and detected additional pesticide residues at unacceptable levels.

We asked Woolworths if the decision to refuse to release the results was based on advice from their legal department due to concerns regarding liability, and they responded by repeating the statement above. We are in the process of attempting to obtain the results via an application under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) and will post the results of that to our Facebook page.

What is clear is that despite the farm receiving an organic certification in August, in response to the TOPIC investigation Woolworths decided that the product no longer qualified as organic in the following month, September. This raises more questions than it answers, such as what chemicals were actually found in the product, what the certifiers missed in their recent farm inspection and how much trust should be placed in the KIWA BCS certificates used by Woolworths.

It should be emphasised that TOPIC only tested two products, and this is far too small a sample size to be able to draw any general conclusions about the range of organic vegetables sold by Woolworths. However, it is a concern that out of the two products that TOPIC happened to test, one had to be withdrawn.

In conclusion…
This has been a very long investigation for TOPIC and despite the initial lengthy delays in responses from Woolworths, the retailer was then transparent with us and kept us informed of the steps they were taking. However, this came to an end after Woolworths received the results of the new tests they conducted on the organic baby spinach, which they were not willing to share after all.

To recap, we found no pesticides on the Woolworths organic sweet potatoes and low levels of four pesticides on their organic baby spinach. Of these four pesticides, three are allowed for use in organic farming without restrictions and one (Fluopyram) is not allowed but was found at a very low amount that is still within EU regulation compliance. The origin of this residue is still unclear. Additional tests by Woolworths also found an undisclosed cause for concern and resulted in a decision to suspend selling this product.

Our findings do raise some questions about organic certification expiry dates and Woolworths is busy implementing a system to prevent lapses from happening in the future. While it is reassuring that Woolworths decided to remove the organic baby spinach from their shelves, it has left unanswered questions such as the value of organic certification from KIWA BCS, as the baby spinach was certified organic shortly before Woolworths pulled the product from the shelves.

We also found that the government departments responsible for setting MRLs appropriate to South Africa were apparently outdated and it is unclear when their own lists of registered actives, let alone the safety data, will be completed.

The TOPIC SA team is now closing off this investigation and will continue to investigate label claims in the pursuit of transparency, accuracy and consumer safety.

TOPIC works with retailers and producers who are committed to transparency and we are supported by Faithful to Nature, Wellness Warehouse, Organic Zone, Bryanston Organic & Natural Market, Organic Emporium and Earthshine.

We have completed numerous successful investigations so far, including Cape Town Market, Mrs BreadCare, Wakaberry, Le Chocolatier, Freedom Bakery, Frys and Futurelife. Consumers are encouraged to nominate products for testing via Facebook, Twitter or anonymously via email.