The company will offer trainings to processors who desire to become certified organic. An intensive two day seminar will take place in Santa Ana, CA on March 13th & 14th, 2008 (prior to Natural Products Expo West).

A refresher training for processors that already are certified organic is in development.

The objective of the trainings is for processors to learn to efficiently integrate the requirements of the National Organic Program into the processors existing Quality Assurance Programs.

The NOP standards require that organic applicants monitor their own compliance with standards. To fulfill that requirement the training will show how data can be efficiently stored and maintained as well as being managed to create easy and transparent self auditing.

The training will put legal language of the organic standards into easy to understand concepts.

The upcoming Training for Food Processors will be conducted by three trainers. All are veteran organic inspectors.

1. Maarten Samsom Principal of Samsom & Associates. University of Agriculture in The Netherlands, MSc degree Marketing and Market Research 1971. Manager of Multi National Company subsidiaries, Senior management consultant for manufacturing industry until move to US in 1979. Organic Farming and Construction in Vermont and New Mexico. Organic Certification Consultant and Inspector since 2000.

2. Monique Scholz is an independent organic inspector from Québec, busily inspecting farms and processors for Canadian and American certifiers since 1990. She has been training inspectors through IOIA since 1996, where she uses a very interactive, dynamic classroom approach. Monique also has experience managing an ISO 65 accredited certification program, auditing Certification Bodies to ISO Guide 65, inspecting to a range of standards (NOP, CAAQ, BS, CEE, JAS, IP, AC and private standards) and assisting start-up organic operators.

3. Margaret Scoles University of Arizona, B.S. degree in Agriculture (Agronomy), 1981. Executive Director of the Independent Organic Inspectors Association, Broadus, Montana, 1999 to present. Founding Board member of IOIA, 1991-1995. She has more than 20 years experience inspecting organic farms, livestock, and processing plants and nearly 20 years experience training organic inspectors through IOIA. She is a frequent speaker at workshops and conferences and has contributed articles to publications including Organic Processing.