Certification

USDA Organic

USDA Organic is the US federal organic standard and the label most commonly seen on organic coffee sold in the United States. Certification is done by private or state agents accredited by the National Organic Program, and every certified farm, cooperative, importer and roaster appears in the public Organic INTEGRITY Database, which makes it the only fully open certification register in coffee. The federal regulation itself, rather than a private standard, defines the labelling categories and the seal.

Register
OpenAnyone can check who holds it
Founded
not published
Run by
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, National Organic Program (accredited certifying agents audit operations)
Covers
Farms, handlers and roasters

What it requires

In this atlas's own words

Any farm or handler that sells, labels or represents coffee as '100 percent organic', 'organic' or 'made with organic' must be certified by a USDA-accredited certifying agent, apart from small exempt operations. Production follows the federal organic rules (7 CFR Part 205): no prohibited synthetic inputs, an organic system plan, record-keeping and annual inspection. Imported green coffee needs the same certification from a USDA-accredited certifier, and roasters that handle and relabel it need their own handler certificate.

Countries active

No country list recorded.

Checking a claim

The register

Open to the public

organic.ams.usda.gov

INTEGRITY is the official public register of certified operations, searchable without login, with full-dataset downloads described by USDA. As a US federal work it is expected to be public domain (17 U.S.C. 105), but the database's own data-usage page returned an application error when we checked, so its exact wording is not quoted here.

Logo use

The USDA seal may appear only on products labelled '100 percent organic' or 'organic' and must reproduce the official design (brown outer circle with green and white, or an all-black version on white or transparent). Packages may also show the certifying agent's mark. Using the seal or the word 'organic' without certification is not allowed.

Businesses in this atlas that hold it

414

And 354 more in the roaster directory and the importer register.