The Danish Veterinary and Food Authority offers guidance about The Organic Cuisine Label. Start by seeing if the Q&A below can answer your question.
Please write to this email address: okologisk-spisemaerke@fvst.dk
You can also contact us at the following address:
Danish Veterinary and Food Authority, att: Rikke Kornval. Tel.: 72 27 69 00
Maybe your you can find answer to your question in our Q&A (Questions and Answers).
Please find answers to the most common questions below.
You calculate your organic percentage by looking at your purchases for the last three months.
If you have one supplier, you can ask this supplier to create a statement with your organic percentage for the last three months. The statement is valid documentation for your cuisine label, provided you have a minimum of 30%, 60%, or 90% organic purchases.
If you have multiple suppliers, you can use the Danish Veterinary and Food Authority's Excel file for your organic accounting. It is an Excel sheet that automatically calculates your organic percentage based on your invoices. Download the organic accounting file here. The file contains tabs that guide you through the completion.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Authority recommends that eateries applying for the Bronze Organic Cuisine Label calculate the organic percentage in kilos, as this quickly yields a high organic percentage. It is often the "heavy" ingredients such as coarse vegetables, flour, milk, etc., that are replaced with organic ones first.
However, for a restaurant/café, it may sometimes be more advantageous to calculate in kroner, as beverages, coffee, and meat are more expensive than their conventional counterparts, and these are typically the ingredients that a restaurant/café purchases the most of.
Yes - the item must be weighed if the organic percentage is calculated in kilograms and there is no weight indication on the raw material on the invoice, receipt, or packaging itself. If it is often the same item that is purchased, the weight can be estimated based on judgment or experience (for example, 1 liter of milk ≈ approximately 1 kilogram) and used going forward. If purchasing 100% organic items, the entire bag can simply be weighed.
Please note that it is the weight of the condition in which the raw material arrives in the kitchen that the kitchen must weigh. If the kitchen is calculating in kilograms, for example, purchased potatoes without peel must be weighed or calculated in this form, just as it is always the net weight, i.e., without packaging, that should be used for kilogram calculations.
Yes, if these ingredients are systematically used in cooking, they should be included in the organic accounting. Herbs, flowers, etc. from own production are considered conventional ingredients unless they are grown on organic-certified land.
Water (including bottled water without citrus and other flavorings, but possibly with carbonation), table salt, bottle deposits, as well as wild-caught fish and other food from hunting and fishing, are excluded from the accounting.
The same applies to certain salts, such as those occasionally used in cooking, which do not originate from agricultural production, for example, calcium chloride (for neutralizing oxalic acid-containing foods).
Non-food products such as candles, napkins, glassware, etc., are also not included.
Yes. If the ingredients are similar to those served to the kitchen's regular guests, they should be included in the organic accounting.
A kitchen can only exclude purchased ingredients from the organic calculation if they are for special occasions, such as a staff Christmas party.
To keep the ingredients out of the organic accounting, it is a prerequisite that the purchases are:
-Accounted for separately from other purchases (e.g., with a separate invoice for the purchase),
-And that procedures are documented for ensuring that the ingredients are not used in the preparation of food for the kitchen's regular diners, and that the kitchen has assessed in advance how much food is purchased for the staff event.
If you apply for The Organic Cuisine Label in gold, your kitchen must develop a raw material policy. The kitchen's customers/guests should have easy and immediate access to read the kitchen's raw material policy; for example, on the menu or through table signage or with a reference to read more on the dining establishment's website, etc.
The purpose of a raw material policy is to ensure that consumers are not misled, because the use of wild-caught fish and game is "neutral" and not included in the organic accounting.
All suppliers (both organic and conventional) must be included in the organic accounting to calculate an overall organic percentage.
You can find the organic certificates in the EU's database TRACES NT:
Yes, all food and beverages should be included in your organic accounting. You should record your receipts from grocery stores in the accounting. Only items on the receipt with "ORG" (organic) written before them can be counted as organic in your accounting. If an item on your receipt doesn't have "ORG" written before it, you can ask the cashier to write it on the receipt next to the item and then stamp the receipt with the store stamp and date. If an item doesn't have "ORG" written before it, it should be counted as conventional, even if it's organic.
Kitchens that calculate their organic percentage in terms of money can choose whether to calculate the organic percentage based on the price with or without tax. The choice should be consistent throughout the accounting, so it's always calculated the same way, both from suppliers and grocery stores.
Kitchens that calculate their organic percentage in terms of weight can choose between the following options:
(i) to make two calculations: one calculation in terms of weight of deliveries from their regular suppliers and one calculation in terms of money of purchases from the grocery store in question. Both calculations must show that the organic percentage at least corresponds to the label.
This is caused by an error in the way you insert the numbers in the file. If you insert the conventional groceries i column D, it will affect the organic percentage to become 100%. Column D is only for groceries like non-food and bottled water, as these groceries are to be left out of the calculation. See all the groceries that is out of the calculation in another Q&A above.
Yes, the organic percentage is calculated based on all food and beverages, both conventional and organic.
All purchased food and beverages related to the kitchen must be included in the organic accounting. If sales from vending machines occur in the cafeteria area, and thus are associated with the use of the Organic Cuisine Dining Label, it must always be included in the calculation.
If sales from a vending machine are not associated with the kitchen but appear as a separate sales unit with its own inventory and accounting, it can be excluded from the organic accounting.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to give special status to natural wine, even though it may be sustainably produced. If natural wine is not organically certified, it is included as a conventional beverage in the organic accounting.
Yes. If the wine is labeled with the Demeter logo, then EU organic regulations must be complied with. Therefore, the wine must also be labeled with the EU organic logo.
No, only purchased products that are 100% organic may be counted as organic.
Organic farming of shellfish is subject to similar rules as other organic food production. If they cannot be found in organic form, they are considered conventional. However, if you catch them yourself, they will be considered wild-caught, and thus they are neutral in the accounting.
You can either have your statements printed, for example, in a folder, or have the organic accounts/statements stored on a computer. The statements just need to be accessible during inspection, no matter which employees are present during the inspection.
Restaurants are inspected approximately once a year, typically in connection with regular food inspections.