During a recent CBI mission in July to Pakistan, Bert-Jan Ottens and Michael Schwegler (our in2ni colleague) prepared the grounds for an innovative pilot scheme, aiming at the sustainable sourcing and certification of wild-collected Chilgoza (pine) nuts from the Northern areas of Pakistan. They took stock of current collection and processing practices of Community Biodiversity Enterprises (CBEs) in the Gouherabad valley, who are collecting Chilgoza pine nuts from their communal forests.
The pilot introduces a ground-breaking certification solution that aims to assess and certify supply chains in the natural ingredient sector according to multiple voluntary sustainable standards. This certification tool is designed to make the certification process easier, more convenient and cheaper. As a next step, ProFound will design a training programme for the community-based enterprises together with CBI-engaged processing and exporting companies to adopt sustainable sourcing and certification practices. In the same process ProFound also will train certification inspectors to use the tool in their inspection and certification process.
Interested to know more about ProFound’s activities in Pakistan or our one-stop certification solutions? Contact us at mail@thisisprofound.com