Euro Fruits is committed to strictly comply with the letter and spirit of the Regulation of Export of Fresh Grapes to the European Union through Control of Pesticides Residues August 2004 with updated modifications and amendements as compiled by APEDA, the agro-export promotion council of the Government of India. The Regulation controls various aspects like farm registration, mandatory crop protection product related spray records, packhouse recognition schemes, mandatory 100% pre shipment residue monitoring of representative samples in Indian laboratories, total traceability across the logistics chain etc. etc. The full version of the Regulation is on website www.apeda.com

As stated in the Euro Fruits Procurement Protocol, the company would limit its sourcing from pre-registered farms that provide full crop protection application details and input traceability details as per the formats developed by Euro Fruits and that are regularly visited by Euro Fruits farm scouts team, since the fruit pruning in October/ November 2004.

Euro Fruits has had intensive interaction with the APEDA approved testing laboratories for gaining understanding about their accreditations, instrumentation and expertise. Relevant documents in this respect are available on record with Euro Fruits. Within the framework of APEDA recognised laboratories, Euro Fruits intends to work with Reliable Analytical Laboratory, Mumbai. The laboratory has been certified under ISO/ IEC 17025:1999 by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India as per their certificate number T – 0353 dated November 9, 2004 covering within the scope of accreditation the pesticides residues for Grapes. The laboratory has agreed to provide the relevant back up papers like chromatograms, calculations etc. for specific samples on our request. The chemists and technicians of the laboratory have undergone extensive training both in India and in Holland given by experts of TNO Labs, Holland.

Euro Fruits is regularly in touch with TNO Labs, Holland for seeking technical clarifications and keeping track of changes in European pesticides residues related regulations etc.

Euro Fruits encourages and facilitates the Indian testing laboratories to keep homogenised samples, send samples abroad for conducting ring/ inter laboratory tests and actively interact with overseas testing labs for better understanding of all the variables in the analytical process.

Based on the lab test results, the respective plots would be cleared for harvest. The decision on clearance of the plots for harvesting is taken by the Director at the head office of Euro Fruits in Bombay.

During the Season 2004, Euro Fruits send 100% of its pre-shipment samples for residues testing to TNO Labs Holland. Simultaneous checking was also done in Reliable Labs in India.

Based on this experience, we have decided to conduct send most samples Indian laboratory for Season 2005. However during the initial part of the season, some samples selected randomly will be send to TNO Labs, Holland for testing, in addition to the mandatory testing at Indian lab tests for comparative results.