Organic, Halal, Vegan: the Claims We Cannot Certify

This is the shortest answer on our site and the one people most want to be different. We are not organic certified. We are not halal certified. We hold no vegan or kosher certification either.

That does not mean a certified product cannot be packed here. It means the question belongs to your certifier rather than to us, and that you should ask it before you plan a product around the claim rather than after.

What we are and what we are not

	Position
Organic certification	None held
Halal certification	None held
Vegan certification	None held
Kosher certification	None held
Laboratory testing	None run. We have no laboratory
What we do	Weigh a finished dry material into retail bags, seal, label

We would rather state that plainly than let it surface three weeks into a conversation. It rules some projects out, and the ones it rules out are better ruled out early.

The question to put to your certifier

Most brands ask us the wrong question, which is whether their product can still be called organic. We genuinely cannot answer that, because the answer depends on the scheme you are certified under and on the rules of the market you sell in, neither of which is ours to interpret.

The question that gets you a usable answer is narrower. Ask your certifier, in these words: does the repacking step itself have to be certified for this product to carry the claim in my market.

That is a yes or no question with a definite answer, your certifier deals with it routinely, and it settles the whole thing. Everything else follows from it.

If the answer is	Then
No, repacking does not need certification	We can pack it. Keep your producer’s documentation
Yes, the packer has to be certified	You need a certified packing line. That is not us
It depends on the scheme	Get it in writing before you plan dates around it

Ask it early. A certifier takes time to answer, and the answer occasionally changes which supplier you need, which is not a discovery to make with material already in Kyoto.

What we can give you either way

Whatever the answer, the documentation that supports a claim comes from your producer, not from a packing line. They hold the certificate, the test reports and the specification. Ask them for all three early, because they are usually the longest lead item in a launch.

What we contribute is the fact of the packing: that filling, sealing and labelling happened at our facility in Kyoto. That is a true statement and it is a different statement from any certification claim. Packed in Japan or product of Japan works through the same distinction for origin, which behaves identically.

Vegan is a slightly different question

Organic, halal and kosher are certification schemes with bodies behind them. Vegan is sometimes a certification and sometimes a plain statement about ingredients, and which one you mean changes who answers.

If you mean the ingredients, that is your producer’s question: they know what is in the material and what their own facility handles. If you mean a certification mark on the pack, that is a certifier’s question, and we hold no such mark.

What we can tell you about our side is narrow and factual. We handle dry, ambient, plant based materials. We do not formulate, so nothing is added to your product here that you did not send us. What a packer will not do sets out that boundary in full.

What a certified ingredient still gives you

If the answer from your certifier is that the repacking step does not need certification, your producer’s certificate does not stop being useful. It travels with the material, it is what a buyer asks to see, and it is the document behind whatever claim you end up making.

Keep it, keep the lot references that go with it, and keep the specification. Those three travel all the way to your retailer, and reconstructing them a year later from memory is much harder than filing them now.

There is also a set of statements that need no certification at all and are often more persuasive than a mark. Naming the prefecture the material came from. Naming the producer. Saying how it was grown or processed, in your producer’s own words, with their agreement. Saying it was bagged in Kyoto, which is simply what happened.

Specific beats general with most customers, and none of those sentences requires anybody to audit anything. Getting them onto the pack is a separate and much simpler question.

Why we do not simply get certified

It is a fair question and the answer is about scope rather than cost. A certification covers a facility operating to a scheme’s rules continuously, with audits, documentation and often physical separation. It is a different way of running a line, and it suits a company whose customers all need the same scheme.

Ours do not. The brands who come to us want a small first order of a finished material in retail bags, and most of them are not making a certified claim at all. Carrying a certification the majority do not use would put cost into every order to serve a minority, and we would rather be clear about what we are than be slightly everything.

If your project genuinely needs a certified packer, that is a real requirement and you should go and find one. We will say so rather than talk you out of it.

The one thing we would push back on is treating a certification as automatically worth its cost. For a brand selling into a channel that demands the mark, it is not optional. For a brand selling a specific Japanese ingredient on its own merits, a named producer plus a named region often does more work than a logo, and it costs nothing to say.

What this rules out, honestly

• A product where the certification mark is the main selling point and the scheme requires the packer to be certified.
• A claim you cannot support with your producer’s own documentation.
• Anything that needs testing to substantiate, because we run none.
• Any product requiring chilled handling, which is a separate constraint but comes up in the same conversations.

None of that is a comfortable list to publish, and we publish it because the alternative is worse: a brand discovering it late, with material already shipped and a launch date booked.

What it does not rule out is an organic ingredient. Plenty of material that reaches our line is certified at the producer end. The question is only whether your market requires the bagging step to be certified as well, and that is the one question to go and ask.

What to tell us when you ask

• Whether a certification claim is going on the pack at all.
• What your certifier has said about the repacking step, if you have asked.
• What the material is, and that it is finished and dry.
• The fill weight per bag and the total bag count.
• The date you need finished stock in your own warehouse.

Our scope, rates and conditions are published on the contract packing page.

Questions we get asked

Are you organic certified?

No. We hold no organic certification, and no halal, vegan or kosher certification either.

Can you still pack my certified organic matcha?

Possibly, and the deciding question is for your certifier: does the repacking step itself have to be certified for the product to carry the claim in your market. If no, we can pack it. If yes, you need a certified line.

Can you put an organic logo on the label?

We apply whatever label you supply, at USD 0.15 per position. Whether you are entitled to use a mark is between you and the body that owns it.

Will you get certified in future?

Not planned. It would add cost to every order to serve the minority of customers who need it, and we would rather be clear about our scope.

Can you run a certified product on the same line as an uncertified one?

Our line is not certified at all, so the question does not arise here. If your scheme has requirements about that, it has requirements about us, and the answer is the certified packer route.

Related reading

• A packer is not a manufacturer
• Packed in Japan or product of Japan
• What goes on the label, and who supplies it
• Who sells you the tea, and who bags it