THE IMPORTANCE OF PLANT HEALTH

For the majority of visitors to a nursery or garden center the last thing on their minds is the impact to their health from plants or how vital it is, during the production and shipment of stock, to have complete traceability. Ensuring plant health and compliance with legislation guidelines is vital in safeguarding public health, the environment and the economy. Imports of plants, seeds, soil, fruit, vegetables and grains must be certified, at their originating source, as free from disease and harmful organisms which are not currently established in the EU. In order to comply, exporters of stock covered by the legislation, shipping to a country inside or outside the EU, the stock must carry a plant passport. Passports must travel with goods and may be split between documentation and labels. Labels play an important role in communicating data relating to the health and origin of plants and other horticultural products so label durability is essential. Your stock is at risk from being destroyed if it arrives at the point of import unlabelled. Printed data should be equally as hardwearing as the labels themselves to ensure legibility and trouble-free trading. Our labels and printers have been carefully selected in order to meet the rigors of watering and spraying with pesticides. From our manufacturing site in Sheffield we can have the capacity to produce volume runs of pre-printed labels, using high performance inks and printing technology as well as blank stock for users to print their own plant passports in house and on demand. To offer a complete solution IML supply label printers, plant labelling software and technical support to assist users to create label templates and layouts to meet their individual requirements. IML’s experience in supplying labels for identification and track & trace applications in heavily regulated industries such as hazardous chemicals makes IML your perfect partner and ensures you can be 100% confident your passport information remains in place keeping wastage to a minimum. David Austin Roses validate legal information using labels. Their licencing tags, supplied by IML, provide buyers with a guarantee that they are purchasing authentic, high quality roses grown legally and ethically by David Austin. In this way the integrity of their premium brand and excellent reputation is protected and ensures illegally grown roses are not sold under their name. Each licence tag is printed with a unique serial number which provides full traceability right back to the original grower. In the unlikely event that a quality issue does arise, or an attempt is made to trade the plant in an unauthorised marketplace, this tracking data is essential. Every authorised David Austin Roses product, grown worldwide, now carries a licence tag. Such is the importance of the licencing tag it now forms part of the terms and conditions of the growers licence. If professional buyers are offered roses without tags, they can assume that they have been grown illegally and are urged to alert David Austin Roses who may proceed with legal action, where appropriate, in order to protect and maintain their exceptional reputation. IML recently won a competitive tender to manufacture and supply licence tags to David Austin Roses for the next three years. This contract calls for IML to produce approx.10 million licencing tags for use on roses traded worldwide. IML’s knowledgeable staff with be on hand at the HTA Plant Health Conference on 17th February 2016 at the National Agri-Food Innovation Campus, York to discuss plant passport and traceability labels.

For more information on THE IMPORTANCE OF PLANT HEALTH talk to Dura-ID Solutions Limited