Hain Celestial Group announces transition to NSF/ANSI 305 standard

MELVILLE, N.Y. — The Hain Celestial Group, a maker of natural and organic personal care products, has announced its transition to the NSF/ANSI 305 Standard for Personal Care Products Containing Organic Ingredients.



Two years ago, Hain Celestial began a program of reformulation and relabeling to adhere to the NSF/ANSI 305 standard, the American National Standard for personal care products containing organic ingredients.



The NSF/ANSI 305 Standard for Personal Care Products Containing Organic Ingredients specifies the materials, processes, production criteria and conditions that must be met in order to make organic labeling and marketing claims. Under this standard, all personal care products with "organic" claims — other than ingredient lists — must contain a minimum organic content of 70% (070), and must be formulated without any ingredient or process disallowed by the NSF.



"We continually review our personal care product formulations and standards," stated Irwin Simon, president and CEO of Hain Celestial. "To meet the expectations of our loyal consumers, we are proud to announce that we have adopted the NSF/ANSI 305 'made with organic' standard across our Avalon Organics and Earth's Best Organic personal care brands. We are currently in the process of certification and labeling transition. These changes affect all production as of November 2011."



The company's natural brands also may become compliant to the standard — the JASON, Zia natural skincare and Alba Botanica brands have all updated their packaging to identify as organic-only specific ingredients on products' ingredient lists. These changes have affected all production as of June 2011.



The manufacturer stated that all of the certified organic ingredients in its products meet all federal requirements pursuant to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program. They are certified organic by such organizations as Quality Assurance International, Oregon Tilth, Ecocert and other third-party organic certification agencies.