Organic Certification
Niugini Organics is certified as an Organic Producer and Processor by the Organic Food Chain.
OFC is one of only 6 organisations in Australia appointed by the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources certify compliance with the Australian Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Produce.
These certifying Agencies within Australia are:
Organic Food Chain www.organicfoodchain.com.au
NASSA Certified Organic www.nasaa.com.au
AUS-QUAL www.ausqual.com.au
Biodynamic Research Institute www.demeter.org.au
Safe Food Production Queensland www.safefood.qld.gov.au
Australian Certified Organic www.aco.net.au
Government Recognition
The Australian Government has recognised that exports of Organic produce and food will be increasingly a cornerstone of trade in a world where natural production techniques and pristine environments are becoming scarce commodities. As such the implementation of the Australian
Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Production is crucial to the reputation of Australian Exports.
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources ensures that all of the above organisations vigorously enforce the Standard and maintain the integrity and reputation of Australian Organic Producers.
International Protocols
International protocols dictate that where an imported product is certified as organic in the country of production an importer may label it as complying with the standard of the importing country and use the logo on the package providing the importer is a member of that certifying organisation in the importing country.
Integrity of AFC
Because of the extremely high standard and integrity of Australian certifying agencies, Niugini Organics chose to engage the Organic Food Chain directly as its certifier. Niugini Organics is a direct client of the Organic Food Chain and the Organic Food Chain engages an independent auditor to travel to Rabaul, Papua New Guinea carry out audits on the processing facility and also smallholder coconut suppliers. Physical inspections ensure that paper-chain records are kept and that they are accurate and meaningful.
Compliance & Management
Organic certification is not only about not herbicides, insecticides and fertilisers. Compliance also means that the annual audit confirms that we abide by our Organic Management Plan, which we update and submit to OFC annually. Good practice, good hygiene, and good management are essential.
All label drafts and formulations are submitted to OFC for approval before a product goes into production or is updated. This ensures that all ingredients are permitted inputs and that labelling confirms the correct level of Organic status.
Relationship with Suppliers
Just as important is the notion of corporate citizenship. In our case the relationship with the coconut suppliers and the engagement of the company and its personnel with the local community are also important.
Fair Trade
Paying Farmers Direct
There appears to be some ambiguity within the Fair-Trade movement as to whom the fair-trade pricing actually gets paid to. We can state categorically that Niugini Organics pays a price in local PNG Kina above the US Dollar Fairtrade schedule for both Organically grown coconuts as well as the Fairtrade Premium. We pay this amount DIRECTLY to FARMERS.
Mutual Respect
Niugini Organics relationship with our village farmers is one based on mutual respect and mutual needs. We can process coconuts into a high value end product and therefore can afford to share the returns with those farmers. We require high quality certified organic nuts that are harvested regularly to be delivered to the processing plant to meet processing demand. Paying (and receiving) a constant high price, isn’t just a feel good exercise, it actually makes good economic sense.
Co-ordination
Niugini Organics employs a Wild Harvest Farmer Coordinator. She takes on new farmers, inspects their land and plots their boundaries by GPS. She explains why farmers must abide by the Organic Wild Harvest Standard and helps them improve their yields by organic farming methods.
Local Company
Niugini Organics has been in business producing coconut oil and coconut soap since 1994. It is a 100% locally owned company that integrates the processing of coconuts from farm to finished products on its own premises and is highly respected as a major employer and major income provider to the local farmers
Community
We take our corporate citizenship obligations seriously. Managing Director Dennis Hill has served on the board of management of the local Kerevat Rural Hospital for 5 years, and was Chairman for 3 years. Our workshop frequently helps out with repairs for the hospital.
Co-ordination
Niugini Organics employs a Wild Harvest Farmer Coordinator. She takes on new farmers, inspects their land and plots their boundaries by GPS. She explains why farmers must abide by the Organic Wild Harvest Standard and helps them improve their yields by organic farming methods.
Decline and rebirth of the coconut industry
The Tolai peoples of the Gazelle Peninsula in East New Britain have embraced the cash economy even before the area became a German colony. White traders bought coconuts from villagers and dried the coconut meat on smoky fires to making what is known as copra. The villagers in turn purchased metal tools, fabrics and items such as fishing lines and hooks.
Coconut oil was in high demand in Europe for the production of soaps, lighting oils and later on the manufacture of oleochemicals such as surfactants used in detergents.
It wasn’t long before the Tolai built their own driers and made their own copra. In 1955 the Australian trading company WR Carpenter built what became the largest vegetable oil mill in the southern hemisphere in the thriving town of Rabaul. This symbiosis of village farmers and foreign trading company made the Tolai the envy of village farmers throughout the Papua New Guina.
Since the heydays of the 1960’s the prices of not just coconut oil but most other tropical commodities, including those grown throughout Papua New Guinea such as cocoa, coffee and spices, have continued a downward spiral in real terms (US dollars adjusted for inflation).
A constant round of speculation in the international futures markets results in wild swings in prices. Copra, which once funded a comfortable self-sufficient lifestyle is simply not worth producing these days except for those short windows of opportunity when the buyers get nervous about world stocks and briefly send the prices up. An international well funded and well orchestrated campaign by the producers and processors of alternative oil-seeds over 50 years successfully smeared the reputation of coconut oil and human health to the point where it was cast as a pariah. And while Virgin Coconut Oil has emerged successfully as the latest new thing, it is a highly competitive market and it will take many years before demand will reach the levels where coconut farming can again be viable for all farmers not just the few fortunate now to be associated with successful processors and exporters and coconut can again be restored to it’s rightful position as the healthiest and tastiest of all plant oils.
Copra making is hard physical work. The nuts are chopped open with an axe, the flesh is cut out with a knife and firewood must be brought in to keep the fires going for a week. Most coconut owners these days have realised that by the time they hire a drier and then a vehicle so that they can sell the product, they are already out of pocket. That’s with no allowance for the hard physical work involved.
When the Rabaul Copra oil mill suffered a fire in 2012 and the owners since deemed it not worth re-opening a final blow to the copra industry was struck.
Most coconuts now simply fall to the ground and germinate or rot. Niugini Organics has developed a new future for the coconut industry. As an export industry, that represents new money coming into the area which benefits the whole economy. All of our products are produced and packed into their final form in our factory in Kerevat, That means straight out of the carton and onto the Supermarket shelf in the destination country. And that represents the maximum value adding taking place here. We are Niugini Oganics, Papua New Guinean and proud of it.
Land Ownership
Some 97 percent of land throughout Papua New Guinea is held under customary land tenure, which mean in effect means that it is not owned by the state or under freehold title. This has not stopped unscrupulous logging and the export of logs for woodchip in many parts of the country. However travel by aircraft quickly confirms the fact that indeed most of the land-mass still exists under virgin forest.
Tolai Culture
The Tolai people of the Gazelle peninsula on the island of New Britain have a matrilineal system of inheritance. Children become part of their mother’s clan and, nominally at least, ownership of land passes from mother to daughter. Upon marriage, many husbands move into the wife’s village and are instrumental in the development and harvesting on cash crops such copra, cocoa, coffee and balsa wood.
For many women their economic activities are restricted to growing of vegetable and selling them in the local markets. The tropical cash crops above involve a lot of physical work that most women cannot sustain themselves in addition to the traditional tasks of child rearing, growing food and house-keeping.
The Supply Chain
All of Niugini Organics’ products are manufactured and packed on site. Then shipped out and sold directly to wholesalers and retailers in the importing countries. The supply chain is very short and Niugini Organics can therefore afford to pay a very attractive price for its coconuts.
The work is not arduous and takes most suppliers two to three days per month. Most tell us that the return is far better than the other traditional cash crops and many are now concentrating on supplying coconuts.
A result of this is that more than half of our coconut suppliers are now women. They tell us that for the first time they are able to utilise their land resource themselves. For some of these women it is the first time that they have been able to earn their own income off the land that they have always owned.
Sustainability
At Niugini Organics, we value sustainability in many forms.
The Environment
With a productive life of well over 100 years the coconut palm is perhaps the ultimate sustainable crop.
It has very low impact on the natural forest habitat around it. With all nuts supplied to Niugini Organics under “Wild Harvest” conditions the nuts are husked close to where they fall. The husks are a valuable source of potassium, as are the fronds that shed continuously. Naturally occurring leguminous creepers are allowed to thrive, fixing atmospheric Nitrogen into proteins which decompose back into the soil.
The palms themselves are indigenous local, varieties and highly resistant to the insect pests and viral infections that plague hybrid coconut palms and high yielding selections that are planted commercially in many regions and are dependant on fertilizers and insecticides. A thriving microbiological ecosystem within the soil is the first step towards any balanced ecosystem.
Our Farmers Methods
Our farmers have observed the effect that crops such as Oil Palm and Balsa Wood have on tropical soils with high rainfall leaving them leached of nutrients. Many have said they will not grow balsa ever again and they will never ever grow palm oil.
Monoculture systems of farming are foreign to traditional Melanesian life. A walk through a typical food garden (and everyone grows their own food) reveals a constant mix of sweet potato, taro, cassava, papaya, beans, yams and all sorts of food crops totally mixed up. No-where will you see neat lines of vegetables that have been grown from seeds that have come in packets.
We value the health and endurance of biological systems, all our the farms under forest are unaltered by harvesting, our method is known as ‘wild harvest’. The ripened coconuts fall to the ground, and each month farmers clear the ground under the trees, and the coconuts are husked on site.
Energy
Most of the energy requirements for the Niugini Organics factory are met by the 1000 kilowatt steam boiler which consumes coconut shells as it fuel. While our medium term dream is to go totally solar currently our electricity is supplied by PNG Power’s 20 megawatt Warangoi Hydro Electricity generating facility. Our older diesel vehicles are run on coconut oil. As the oil is so pure, and the daily temperatures usually over 30 degrees celcius, the vehicles will run well with as no modification.Re-usability
We are passionate that in this throw-away world, if recycling is good then reusability is even better.
We get feedback from customers who tell that our custom made Kilner jars are a great storage solution to their kitchens, they use them for bulk buying of healthy ingredients and many who have been encouraged to start making their own jams, relishes and preserves. Very occasionally you might find a dark spec in the glass, don’t worry that glass has been recycled once already.
Employment
The official unemployment rate in PNG is around 2.5% when measured on the same basis as industrialised countries. The problem of course is that the bulk of the population would like a job but they know that they do not have the skills and that the jobs are simply not to be found. The bulk of the population live in the rural areas much of which do not even have roads let alone locally based industries.
Niugini Organics is not a large company but we do exist in a rural area and we do employ over 40 people from surrounding villages. Their formal education ranges from grade two to bachelors degrees.
All of our maintenance, equipment fabrication and construction is done in house. Many of our maintenance team who have trained with Niugini Organics have gone on to work at some of the world class companies within PNG.
Formal employment gives people a sense of self worth, which otherwise sees young men getting involved in, all of which usually end in violence. Over the years we have seen at Niugini Organics, young men involved in petty crime, drugs and home brewed alcohol who, given an income and responsibility, develop into reliable production supervisors, get married, look after their families and become respected leaders within their own communities.
Single Origin
Location
A single origin wine or olive oil can be defined as coming from a single estate rather than a blend, which may vary from batch to batch. Niugini Organics coconut oil is extracted from coconuts grown in villages close to our plant at Kerevat on the Island of New Britain.
Like crops such as grapes, coffee and cocoa, coconuts develop taste markers unique to the environment is which they are grown. The coconuts supplied to Niugini Organics are all grown on the rich, volcanic, pumice soils that define the Gazelle Peninsula.
At 4 degrees South, the equatorial weather is warm and humid all year round with very little variation in rainfall or temperature to define the seasons.
Consistency
Coconuts are left to fall off the palms from which they are wild harvested on a monthly basis so all such are processed at the same optimum level of maturity.
All nuts are processed within 2 days of collection and husking. And of course all nuts are processed by the one process in one location. Vigilant and constant quality control is so important in maintaining the integrity of our products. Our Lab Technician does daily analysis for Free FattyAcids levels and process temperatures to ensure that optimum levels are not exceeded.
Testing
Regular analysis and quality control is undertaken by an independant commercial food laboratory in Melbourne, Australia.
All of this gives us the confidence that the flavour and quality of Niugini Organics’ Virgin Coconut Oil will always and consistently to be the best on the market. We are proud that Niugini Organics is not just a brand. It’s not a catchy here today and maybe gone tomorrow name that appeals to current trends.
It is, our existence, it’s who we are and it is what we do.
Employment
Statistics
The official unemployment rate in PNG is around 2.5% when measured on the same basis as industrialised countries i.e. the percentage of the population who are actively seeking paid work.
Why?
The problem of course is that the bulk of the population would like a job but they know that they do not have the skills and that the jobs are simply not to be found. The bulk of the population live in the rural areas much of which do not even have roads let alone locally based industries. So while 26% of the population are engaged in the Industrial and Service sectors, officially almost everyone else is dumped under “Agriculture” which of course includes subsistence farming.
Community
Niugini Organics is not a large company but we do exist in a rural area and we do employ over 40 people from surrounding villages. Their formal education ranges from grade two to bachelors degrees. All of our maintenance, equipment fabrication and construction is done in house. Many of our maintenance team who have trained with Niugini Organics have gone on to work at some of the world class companies in PNG, such as Lihir Gold.
Our Staff
Many of our semi-skilled staff (as well as coconut suppliers) are single mums and the regular income enables them to provide for and educate their children. PNG as an emerging nation is very much in a state of flux. Traditional roles have diminished in cultural value and often a vacuum is created leaving many especially young men without a guaranteed sense of purpose and identity. Formal employment gives people a sense of self worth, which otherwise sees young men getting involved in undesirable situations, all of which usually end in violence.
It is, our existence, it’s who we are and it is what we do.
Issues and Loans
Over the years we have seen at Niugini Organics, young men involved in petty crimes, drugs and home brewed alcohol who, given an income and responsibility, develop into reliable production supervisors, get married, look after their families and become respected leaders within their own communities. The company makes no-interest loans available to employees for home improvement and building purposes.
Reliable Income
Likewise the ability of local village farmers to earn a reliable, regular and viable cash income is vital, if village life is to be attractive enough to hold young people at home and stop the urban drift that often ends in idleness and destruction. Over 200 families have long term Wild Harvest contracts with Niugini Organics, as well as about 20 owners of small vehicles which supplement their income transporting the nuts of the village farmers to the factory.
Niugini Organics has provided new opportunities for the local population to utilise the coconuts surrounding them, giving village life a bright new future for their families.
Staff Development
We are proud that our Smallholder Coordinator Lavinia Tovue has been selected under the prestigious Australian Awards to study towards her Masters in Agricultural Science at the University of Queensland.
We see staff development as vital towards the long term future of Niugini Organics.
