Much was made of the notion of “greater authenticity” at the Sustainable Cosmetic Summit in New York last month, and while the importance of transparency and quality standards was widely embraced, leaders in the natural/organic products market had differing views on certification.

CEOs from Burt’s Bees, Weleda, Yes To Inc., Juice Beauty Inc. and Dr. Hauschka participated May 12 in a conference roundtable discussion on challenges facing the industry, including natural and organic cosmetics certification.

Asked about the “importance” of certification, Yes To’s Ido Leffler and Weleda’s Jasper van Brakel suggested that seals and logos mean less to consumers than other variables.

More important than third-party natural/organic certifications, according to Weleda CEO Jasper van Brakel, “is [if] as a brand, you are being fully transparent about your principles and where you source.”

Yes To, which certifies some products, such as its Yes To Carrots lip tints and lip glosses, to the Natural Products Association’s natural standard, and others, such as its Yes To Carrots lip butters, under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program, has “elected on the whole not to put a lot of these standards on our packaging,” Leffler said.

“One of the reasons for that is that we know from talking to our customers that they believe us. We are very transparent and they can find info on our website,” the exec added.

Van Brakel, who heads Weleda’s North America business, agreed that earning trust in one’s brand is more important than wowing consumers with packaging emblazoned with certification logos.

Weleda, along with Wala-Heilmittel GmbH (owner of Dr. Hauschka Skin Care) and four other personal-care firms, helped found the NATRUE certification program in November 2007 as a way “to safeguard and promote pure, authentic natural beauty and skin care products,” according to the organization’s site.

Weleda features the NATRUE label on some of its packaging. “Do I think that we will sell one more product because of that?” asked van Brakel. “No, I don’t.”

In fact, symbols can be as confusing as they are informative, he suggested. Consumers “don’t know how to find a natural product, they don’t know how to find an organic product. They don’t know what these seals mean,” he said.

“What I believe is much more important is [if] as a brand, you are being fully transparent about your principles and where you source,” he asserted.

Priority also should be given to communicating product efficacy. Weleda certifies not only to NATRUE but also to BDIH’s criteria for natural products, as well as to kosher and biodynamic farming standards. If product packaging were to sport every seal a company has garnered, “there would be no space for the benefits,” van Brakel pointed out.

Certifications do not seem to be highly important to many retailers either, particularly in the prestige beauty sector, Juice Beauty’s Karen Behnke said. “I can’t say our prestige retailers really care. They care that we have organic content and about efficacy, but they aren’t really concerned about certifications, and the consumers don’t seem to be very concerned.”

On the other hand, Whole Foods Market does care, and “certainly our Whole Foods customer is very important to us,” Behnke noted, adding: “So I guess the prestige customer benefits from Whole Foods setting the standard. The true Whole Foods customer is certainly more savvy in this area than prestige [customers].”

Starting this month, products marketed as organic must be certified either to USDA’s NOP standards or to NSF International’s NSF/ANSI 305 standard in order to be sold on Whole Foods shelves (Also see "New Whole Foods Policy Requires USDA Certification For Organic Body Care" - HBW Insight, 14 June, 2010.).

Yes To also has taken measures to ensure that its natural and organic products meet Whole Foods’ standards because the retailer “is someone we wanted to work with,” Leffler acknowledged.

An audience member and research analyst for Bradford Soap Works, Kristen Coleman, shares the belief that “seals shouldn’t be the main focus.” Rather, “they are vocabulary brands can use to tell the story of their products, brand values and commitments to a better world,” she said.

Burt’s Bees Wary Of “Pseudo-Natural Players”

Burt’s Bees’ Nick Vlahos was more emphatic about the importance of product certification to win and retain consumer confidence.

“Certification is important, absolutely,” he said, citing Datamonitor findings that nearly “four in 10 consumers don’t buy into the claims on natural or organic personal-care products” (Also see "Skepticism About Natural/Organic Claims Puts Mineral Makeup In Jeopardy" - HBW Insight, 31 May, 2010.).

“That’s an issue. That’s a concern,” the exec said.

Vlahos went further, suggesting that not all natural/organic standards are created equal. Industry needs “to work together to create the right verbiage and [determine] what is the right standard,” he said.

“When it’s left to interpretation ... you get pseudo-natural players that come in and begin defining” what it means for a product to be natural or organic, the exec asserted.

The proliferation of private standards and certification programs for products seeking the competitive advantage of third-party validation has been viewed with concern by some stakeholders who believe it is causing confusion among consumers and allowing “soft” standards to compete unfairly with more stringent or committed standards.

Van Brakel noted that industry is working to consolidate standards and theoretically moving toward “one global seal.”

The COSMetics Organic Standard (COSMOS) is an example of harmonization between standards and certification bodies, although the lack of a distinct seal for the program is seen by some as a shortcoming that does no favors for consumers (Also see "COSMOS Organic Certification Weakened By Lack Of Logo – Organic Monitor" - HBW Insight, 14 March, 2011.).

Nevertheless, “one day, we’re going to get there,” van Brakel said. He added that he is not overly concerned whether industry ultimately decides to embrace COSMOS or “NATRUE, NPA, NSF or any other abbreviation that we may invent, as long as it’s a solid standard that has solid criteria and distinguishes between a green bottle with a green leaf and crap in it and a really natural product.”

Leffler is not convinced that consolidation of certification programs, and the creation of universal definitions for natural and organic, is necessary. He drew a comparison to religion.

“I’m Jewish. I’m a Progressive Jew. An Orthodox Jew is a Jew. A Secular Jew is a Jew – we’re all Jews. What her definition is, what his definition is, we all create our religion around natural products,” he said.

Vlahos interjected, arguing that “if we work together on creating what that religion should be, you create clarity through the retailer lens to the consumer. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” he concluded.

By Suzanne Blecher

How Important Is Natural/Organic Certification? CEOs Debate

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