OMRI Temporarily Halts Accepting New Applications to LPO Standards

(September 21, 2023) Due to significant recent and upcoming changes to the Mexico Organic Products Law (LPO) standards, OMRI (the Organic Materials Review Institute) will temporarily pause accepting new applications to review input products under those standards effective September 29, 2023.

This temporary pause is necessary because SENASICA (Mexico’s National Service of Health, Safety and Food Quality) published significant revisions to the standards, effective May 2, 2023. Further clarifications may be forthcoming, as well as additional updates before March 31, 2024, as outlined in Article 261 of the LPO Guidelines. 

OMRI is working to implement these changes and expects to complete updates to the OMRI Mexico Standards Manual^© by the end of June 2024. In the meantime, the current OMRI Mexico Products List^© will continue to be publically available at OMRI.org/mexico-list, and will be updated as changes to product listings occur.

According to Executive Director/CEO Orsi Dézsi, “The development of organics in Mexico is exciting. In order to focus on implementing the changes and to avoid frustrating our clients, we’ve decided to pause new LPO applications, while we revise the standards manual. We’ll continue to support the LPO program and our existing clients who put their trust in OMRI to verify that input products meet relevant national standards.”

The pause in applications is expected to mitigate challenges and frustrations for applying suppliers by ensuring that products will need to be reviewed only once to the most up-to-date standards. Review to the Mexico standards that were already in progress will take longer while the OMRI Mexico Standards Manual is updated to reflect current requirements, and while OMRI conducts limited re-reviews to ensure that products on the current OMRI Mexico Products List are listed appropriately. Current applicants with LPO reviews in progress have been notified of the delays necessitated by these regulatory changes.

For more information, please contact:
Roger Plant, Marketing Manager
(541) 343-7600 ext. 132

Founded in 1997 by organic certifiers and stakeholders, OMRI provides an independent review of input products to determine which inputs are allowed for organic use within the U.S. National Organic Program standards, the Canada Organic Regime standards and the Mexico Organic Products Law.