Primary products

Agrarmarkt Austria (AMA) Quality Seal Guidelines – Flowers and ornamental plants

The AMA Quality Seal Guidelines describe a voluntary quality assurance system for agricultural primary production and processing, and are based on the following three pillars: high quality, traceable provenance and independent inspections. They regulate the key production, labelling and documentation steps as well as measures to ensure high levels of hygiene. The Guidelines are broken down into production regulations for primary production and production regulations for processing.

The origin must also be labelled. The indication of origin is to be based on either a region, such as a province/federal state (e.g. Tyrol, Bavaria) or country (e.g. Austria, France), or a general area covering various states or countries (e.g. the Tauern region, the Alps, the EU). The region in which all production steps (e.g. potting, transplanting, staking, cutting, pinching, packaging) take place and from which all the main raw materials of the product being labelled originate will be deemed the region of origin.

Compliance with the requirements of the AMA Quality Seal Guidelines is to be assessed using a three-stage monitoring system: self-checks carried out by the business itself, external checks by independent monitoring authorities/laboratories approved by AMA Marketing, and supervision of external checks, commissioned directly by AMA Marketing.

Participation in the AMA quality seal programme is voluntary. An agreement must be signed between the licensee and AMA Marketing. The agreement may only be entered into if the result of the initial inspection is positive.

The AMA Quality Seal Guidelines - Flowers and ornamental plants contain general production requirements, in particular related to control and documentation, as well as specific production requirements (e.g. plant health; prohibition on genetically modified varieties or products; fertiliser storage and fertiliser records; use, recording and storage of plant protection products; job security; efficient use of energy; training and education; product requirements; traceability; purchase; incoming goods inspections; storage of goods).