That is not a paperwork problem. It is a supply-chain design problem, and in the ingredient trade it is cheaper to solve before sourcing than after. This guide sets out what an organic certificate actually certifies, where the chain of documents has to be unbroken, and the specific reason most botanical extracts cannot carry the strongest organic claim.

A certificate is issued to an operation and a scope

The first idea to hold on to is that organic certification is not a property of a brand or a plant species. It is issued to a specific operator, for a specific scope of activity, at a specific site. A certificate therefore tells you three things at once: who is certified, what they are certified to do, and where they do it.

For botanical ingredients, that means a valid chain usually involves more than one certified operation. A grower is certified for production. A processor is certified for handling, which is the operation that covers drying, extraction, milling and packing. A trader may hold its own certification, or may trade certified goods under a transaction certificate issued by the certified operator. Where any link in that chain is uncertified, the organic status of the material stops at the last certified point. The practical question to ask is therefore not "do you have an organic certificate" but "which certificate covers the operation that produced this lot, and is our product inside its scope".

The document chain, and what each piece does

The chain starts on the growing side. A production certificate comes from the certifier of the growing operation and shows the farm, the crops in scope and the certification period, while the handling or processing certificate comes from the certifier of the processing operation and shows the facility, the processes in scope, and the product categories or named products covered.

Three further documents travel with the goods themselves. A transaction certificate, issued by the certified seller, is the lot-level confirmation that the goods supplied are certified organic. An import certificate, issued by the certifier or control body for cross-border shipments, confirms that the specific consignment meets the destination programme's requirements. And a product scope statement states the product names covered — a critical detail where a certificate covers categories rather than named products.

For exports into the United States, organic consignments travel with an import certificate issued through the certifier, and the importer of record files it with the customs entry. For entry into the European Union, organic imports move with a certificate of inspection issued through a recognised control body. Both are consignment-level documents rather than product-level ones, which means a single approval does not cover subsequent shipments, and a certificate that is valid for one destination programme is not automatically valid for another.

The extraction question that decides your claim

This is where botanical extracts separate from the raw agricultural materials they come from. An organic claim rests on the proportion of organic agricultural ingredients in the product, with different thresholds supporting different claim wording, and with the two major programmes counting slightly differently. Water and salt are typically excluded from the calculation, and the thresholds apply to agricultural ingredients under the EU framework. Confirm the current calculation rules for your destination rather than working from a remembered percentage.

The difficulty for extracts is that an extract contains more than the plant. Solvents, carriers, anti-caking agents and processing aids are all inputs, and organic rules restrict what may be used and how it is counted. A solvent-extracted oleoresin and a water-extracted powder from the same organic crop can therefore end up with different claim eligibility, because the processing inputs differ.

At the top of the range, a full organic claim depends on a very high proportion of organic agricultural ingredients with processing inputs permitted by the programme, which is achievable for some dried and milled organic botanicals but difficult for solvent-extracted products. A reduced-strength organic claim rests on a lower organic proportion and carries a different permitted wording, and it is the more realistic target for many extracts and blends.

Below that, the organic ingredient may qualify only for the ingredient panel: the organic component can be listed in the ingredient statement when it falls below the threshold for a front-panel claim, but it cannot be claimed on the front. And where a carrier or a solvent breaks the chain, the honest position is often that there is no organic claim to make at all.

Two consequences follow for a sourcing brief. The first is that the claim wording should be fixed before the extraction route is chosen, because the two are linked. The second is that carriers and processing aids are part of the calculation, so a formulation team that swaps a carrier late in development can invalidate an organic claim without touching the botanical ingredient at all.

Verifying a certificate in practice

Six checks catch most problems, and all six take less time than a rejected label. Confirm the operator name and address on the certificate match the entity that actually supplied the goods, not a trading name or a related company. Confirm the product is inside the scope — by name where the certificate names products, or by category where it does not, and be conservative where the fit is arguable. Confirm the certifier is accredited or recognised for the destination programme, because a certificate issued under a different scheme is not a substitute. Check the validity period, and note that certificates expire and are reissued. Check that the lot you received can be traced to the certified supplier through a transaction document. And keep the documents together with the lot record, because organic verification is retrospective: it happens when someone asks, not when the goods arrive.

Where a supplier can produce a certificate but not a lot-level link to it, treat the material as organic-certified in principle and unverified in practice. That distinction is what an auditor will test.

Organic is not the same as residue-free

An organic certificate is not a statement that the material carries no residues. Organic systems have their own residue monitoring, and residues can arise from drift, from shared equipment, from storage or from contamination after harvest. Programmes apply their own action levels and investigation procedures when residues are detected.

The practical consequence is that a residue screen belongs in the certificate of analysis for organic material as much as for conventional material, and a positive result on organic goods is a supply-chain investigation rather than simply a rejected lot. Buyers who treat organic certification as a substitute for testing tend to discover the difference at the worst possible moment.

What to write into the sourcing brief

The first items to pin down are the certification standard — the programme the material must be certified under, named explicitly rather than implied by the destination market — together with the scope, meaning the product name as it should appear on the certificate and the operation, production, handling or both, that must be covered. With those agreed, the chain clause specifies lot-level transaction documentation and the import certificate where the goods cross a border.

The remaining items cover what happens downstream. Processing sets out the extraction route, solvent and carrier, agreed in advance and consistent with the claim wording; testing requires residue, heavy metals and microbiological testing on organic lots as well as conventional ones; claims fixes the exact wording permitted on the finished label, confirmed against the destination programme before artwork; and records commits to retained certificates and transaction documents held with the lot record for the period your market requires.

Frequently Asked Questions

If the raw material is certified organic, is my extract too?

Not automatically. Certification attaches to operations and to products in scope. A certified raw material can be processed by an uncertified operation, or with inputs the programme does not permit, in which case the organic status is lost or reduced. Confirm the handling operation is certified and the product is inside the certificate's scope.

Why can't most botanical extracts claim 100% organic?

Because an extract contains inputs beyond the plant — solvents, carriers and processing aids — and those count towards the calculation and are restricted by organic rules. Where a non-permitted input is essential to the process, the strongest claim may not be available, and the wording has to be reduced accordingly.

How do I check that an organic certificate is genuine?

Check the operator name and address, the scope and named products, the certifier's accreditation or recognition for your destination programme, and the validity dates. Then check the lot can be traced to that operator through a transaction document. A genuine certificate that cannot be linked to your lot does not verify your material.

Is organic material residue-free?

No. Organic certification governs how a product is produced and handled, not a guarantee about every analytical result. Residue screening still applies, and programmes have their own action levels and investigation procedures for detections.

Do I need to be certified myself to sell organic ingredients?

That depends on what you do with them. Operations that only trade pre-packed certified goods may fall outside certification, while handling, repacking, blending or processing generally brings you inside it. Confirm with the certifier for your destination market before you build an organic claim into a label.

Top Natural Food Ingredients Manufacturers-DayNatural – Natural Food Ingredients Supplierswww.daynatural.com

What a mesh figure describes

Mesh is a count, not a size. A US mesh number refers to the number of openings per linear inch in a test sieve, so the higher the number, the finer the powder. Converting that to a physical dimension depends on which mesh standard is being used, because US, Tyler and British Standard sieves are not identical. The practical ladder runs like this. A 20 mesh sieve is roughly 850 µm, and its material is coarse herbal cut, sometimes sold as tea material; 40 mesh, at about 425 µm, is a coarse extract powder used where dusting is a problem; 60 mesh, at about 250 µm, is the standard extract powder for dry blending; 80 mesh, at about 180 µm, is the most commonly quoted extract specification in international trade; 100 mesh, at about 150 µm, is a fine grade for encapsulation and tableting; 140 mesh, at about 106 µm, serves suspension and colour-critical work; 200 mesh, at about 75 µm, is very fine, and there flow and dust control become the constraint; and 325 mesh, at about 45 µm, is micronised material for specialist applications, carrying dust-explosion precautions.

The openings are nominal, and the standards differ slightly at the same mesh number. If the specification says only "80 mesh" without naming the standard, it is not reproducible, and the first supplier to test against a different sieve stack will produce a figure that looks wrong without anyone having made a mistake.

"Through 80 mesh" is not the same as "80 mesh"

This is the single most common misreading in the category, and it costs buyers real money in rejected batches.

A pass-through specification says that a stated proportion of the material passes a given sieve — for example, not less than 95% through 80 mesh. That permits an unlimited quantity of fine material below the sieve: the powder can be almost entirely fines and still comply.

A cut specification describes material held between two sieves, for example 80 to 100 mesh. That defines a window and controls both the coarse and the fine ends.

A single number, used alone, is ambiguous between the two. It also says nothing about the quantity of fines, which is the fraction that causes dust, segregation and caking. Where a supplier quotes one figure, ask three follow-up questions: what proportion passes, what proportion is retained on the next sieve down, and was the analysis done on an as-is or a dried sample. Moisture changes the result, and a hygroscopic powder can measure differently depending on how long it has been exposed to air before testing.

Why two laboratories disagree about the same powder

Two method families dominate, and they answer the question differently.

Sieve analysis is the classical approach: a stack of certified sieves is agitated for a defined time, and the mass retained on each is reported. It measures the smallest cross-section that will pass an aperture, which means a long, needle-shaped particle can pass a sieve that a spherical particle of the same mass would not. Agitation method and duration affect the result, so the method has to be part of the record. Certification of the sieves matters too — a worn sieve is a slow, invisible error.

Laser diffraction reports a distribution derived from light scattering, usually as a set of percentiles such as D10, D50 and D90, where D50 is the median particle size. It is fast, it repeats well, and it assumes a particle shape and a refractive index. For irregular botanical powders, that assumption is an approximation, and the resulting figures can differ systematically from sieve data — sometimes by enough to look like a different product.

Neither method is wrong. They are not interchangeable, and comparing one supplier's sieve result with another's laser result is comparing two measurements rather than two materials. The specification should name the method, the standard and the sample preparation, and the buyer should insist on the same triad from every supplier.

What particle size actually changes

Flow and dosing and dust generation are the first two effects, and both are decided on the filling line. Fine powder flows poorly and bridges in hoppers, while coarse powder flows better at moderate sizes but can hang up if it is very coarse — and fill weight accuracy on a high-speed line depends on exactly this. Fines also generate a great deal of dust, with a dust-explosion risk below roughly 50 µm, whereas coarse material produces little; operator exposure and containment costs follow the dust rather than the sieve number.

Segregation in a blend and wetting behaviour come next, and they pull in opposite directions. Fines sift downward through a coarser component while coarse particles rise, and the outcome is sachet-to-sachet variation even from a blend that looked homogeneous. Fine powder wets quickly but tends to form surface lumps; coarse powder wets slowly and shows visible grit if it fails to dissolve. Both of those reach the consumer as complaints about floating powder or sediment.

Colour perception and tableting are where the process meets the finished product. In many materials a fine powder gives higher colour strength per unit weight, so the dosage needed to hit a colour target shifts with particle size. On a tablet press, fines compress better but generate more dust, while coarse material compresses poorly and flows better; direct compression routes are sensitive to that difference.

Caking and handling losses are the storage and yield consequences. Fine powder has a higher surface area and takes up more moisture, which makes water activity control more important at fine sizes, while coarse powder takes up less moisture but holds more air between particles. Fines also adhere to surfaces and packaging while coarse material stays free-flowing with less retention, so yield accounting differs between grades.

The pattern is that no single direction is "better". Finer improves colour strength, wetting speed and compressibility while worsening flow, dust and caking. Coarser improves flow and dust while worsening dissolution and colour uniformity. The specification should therefore be derived from the process, not from a generic preference.

Matching particle size across a blend

Where a botanical extract is one component of a dry blend, its particle size and bulk density have to be matched to the other components, or the blend will separate between the blender and the sachet. Segregation is driven by differences in size and density, and it is rarely caused by the blender.

The controls are practical: specify a distribution rather than a single mesh figure for each component, require bulk density alongside it, add a granulation or binder step where components differ sharply, and verify with in-line uniformity checks across the run rather than at the start alone.

Writing the specification

A usable particle size specification carries five elements: the method (sieve analysis or laser diffraction, with the standard named), the statistic being controlled (a pass-through percentage, or a percentile such as D50 with a tolerance), the limits, the sample preparation, and the test frequency. Where the material is hygroscopic, add the water activity or moisture condition at which the test is performed.

Where the material is a granulated or agglomerated grade, remember that the particle size describes the granule, not the primary particle inside it. A granulated product can be coarse on the sieve and instant in the glass, which is the entire point of granulating it — so the dispersion test belongs alongside the particle size figure, not instead of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is 80 mesh in microns?

Approximately 180 µm opening on a US mesh sieve. The exact figure depends on the mesh standard, since US, Tyler and British Standard sieves differ, so the standard should be named alongside the number.

Is "80 mesh" the same as "95% through 80 mesh"?

No. A pass-through specification permits an unlimited fines fraction, and a bare mesh figure does not say whether a pass-through or a cut specification is intended. Ask what proportion passes, what is retained, and what the fines content is.

Why do my sieve results differ from the certificate's laser results?

Because the two methods measure different things and make different assumptions about particle shape. For irregular botanical powders the difference can be systematic. Compare like with like, and specify one method for all suppliers rather than accepting whichever figure you are given.

Does a finer powder dissolve better?

Not necessarily. Finer material wets faster but is more prone to forming lumps on the surface of water, because the outer layer hydrates before the core disperses. Dissolution depends on wettability and on the dispersion system as much as on particle size, which is why granulated grades often outperform a fine milled powder in a drink mix.

What particle size should I specify for a capsule?

A common starting point is 100 mesh or finer with a stated fines content, because capsule filling tolerates fines better than it tolerates coarse particles. The binding constraint is usually flow on the filling machine, so set the target from the equipment, then confirm it with a trial run rather than from a generic recommendation.

Specify particle size with DayNatural

DayNatural supplies botanical extracts and powder systems across the mesh range, including standard milled, fine and granulated grades, with the method, standard and distribution stated on the specification and dispersion behaviour tested in the intended medium. All documentation is verified through our Mérieux NutriSciences testing programme.

Top Natural Food Ingredients Manufacturers-DayNatural – Natural Food Ingredients Supplierswww.daynatural.com