can be produced by distilling lemongrass or Litsea cubeba essential oil.
These essential oils are unquestionably agricultural, and distillation is
an allowed process. Therefore, citral technically should be able to be
certified organic. Even natural aroma chemicals with scary-sounding
chemical names, such as cis-3-hexenol, are allowable. In this case,
Japanese mint (Mentha arvensis) is steam-distilled (allowed), then redistilled into fractions (allowed). In order for a natural aroma chemical to be allowed in a certified organic flavor, the processor must
provide proof to the certifier that the starting material and the
processes are all allowed under the NOP.
“T“The concept that an ingredient, product, or
substance is no longer agricultural once it has
been processed into an extract, isolate, or fraction
is nearly impossible to evaluate…”
But despite these developments, the MWG is still mulling over
many questions surrounding this issue. Are all aroma chemicals agricultural, or are some too far from the original plant material? If they
are agricultural, do they have to be certified in order to be used in an
organic flavor?
A few years ago, due to the Harvey lawsuit, the courts decided that
in order for a nonorganic agricultural material to be used in organic
products, that material had to be listed on 205.606. This ruling also
dictated that if an organic version of a material is commercially available it must be used (aka, “organic preference”). At that time, some in
the organic industry felt that flavors should be moved from 205.605 to
205.606. They understood that as long as flavors were on 205.605,
processors would not have to use organic flavors even when available.
This would do nothing to help increase organic acreage or provide incentive for further organic flavor development.
At around the same time, flavors were coming up for sunset review
and the many weighed in, stating that with so many certified organic
flavors commercially available, they should be sunsetted off 205.605.
Even the Flavor and Extract Manufacturing Association (FEMA), a
century-old trade organization that represents some fairly huge global
companies, presented a decision tree showing that flavors could be
agricultural. Because of the confusion surrounding the definition of
“agricultural,” however, flavors retained their spot on the List.
The bottom line is this: as long as flavors remain on 205.605(a),
nonorganic versions can be used as long as they are nonsynthetic.
However, if sunsetted or moved to section 205.606, any flavors used in
products labeled “organic” will have to be certified organic, unless
they are not commercially available as organic.
As for their components, the natural aroma chemicals, it remains
to be seen whether they qualify as agricultural. This is where the elusive definition of a “nonagricultural substance” will come in. At what
point, if any, does something stop being agricultural? Currently, it is
defined as: A substance that is not a
product of agriculture, such as a mineral
or a bacterial culture that is used as an ingredient in an agricultural product. For
the purposes of this part, a nonagricultural ingredient also includes any substance, such as gums, citric acid or pectin,
that is extracted from, isolated from, or a
fraction of an agricultural product so that
the identity of the agricultural product is
unrecognizable in the extract, isolate or
fraction.
According to Gwendolyn Wyard,
co-facilitator of the MWG and processing program technical specialist
for Oregon Tilth, “The concept that
an ingredient, product, or substance
is no longer agricultural once it has
been processed into an extract, isolate, or fraction is nearly impossible to
evaluate, and is not consistent with
many of the agricultural products currently on the market.”
Wyard pointed out that most processing activities render the finished
products as unrecognizable from
their original raw materials. “
Substances that are clearly recognized as
agricultural products, such as mal-todextrin, cornstarch, rice syrup and
vegetable protein, could all be classified as nonagricultural according to
this definition,” she said. “Without
further specification of the terms
‘identity’ and ‘unrecognizable,’
evaluation of a substance is difficult
at best.”
Furthermore, the example of
pectin and gums as nonagricultural
substances is confusing, because both
of these substances are also listed as
agricultural ingredients in §205.606.
Any aroma chemicals that do qualify as agricultural will either have to
be certified individually, or listed individually on 205.606. Regarding those
natural aroma chemicals that do not
qualify as agricultural (i.e., those that
are deemed “nonagricultural”), the
flavor industry may want to consider a
petition to put them, as a group, on
205.605(a) as nonsynthetics. This list-
