QUALITY INDICATORS
The agricultural and food know-how in France and Picardy is an heritage we have to protect. Four official quality indicators allow to guarantee the products quality and make you easier to recognize them when you do your shopping. Many producers from Picardy belong to one of these indicators in order to make you sure you buy the best products.

Asort of quality control label - Organic farming - Red Label - Conformity Certificate

Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée :

The Asort of quality control label (AOC) (guarantee of quality and origin) : Maroilles Neufchâtel Calvados Champagne Prés salés

The Asort of quality control label (AOC) indicates a product native from a region or a definite place, the characteristics of which are essentially due to this geographical environment. It results from the combination of a production and from a soil which expresses itself by the men’s know-how.
The field of application of this protection, conceived at first to guarantee the origin of the wine, was widened to all the farm or food products, then to the forest products and to the sea products.
The protected label of origin (AOP) is the European equivalent of the AOC (see the column the European signs). If the product can’t obtain the AOP from the European commission, it loses the AOC which was granted.
The production is subjected to procedures of agreement containing a capacitation of the operators, a control of the conditions of production and a control of products.
The agreement of an AOC is proposed by the INAO to authorities after opinion of the body of defence and management, which represents and gathers the operators of the sector of the product.
(source : http://agriculture.gouv.fr).
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Maroilles : Decree of 29/12/1986
It's a soft cheese from cow milk, slightly salted and fermented dough with orangy crust. It is refined during at least five weeks. the total weight of dry matter can't be lower than 360g, the cheese counts at least 45% of fat matter.
Maroilles is produced in Thiérache.The name "Maroilles" is also granted to Sorbais(270g), Mignon(180g) and Quart(90g).

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Neufchâtel : Decree of 29/12/1986
Neufchâtel: decree of 29/12/1986 added rennet cow's milk Cheese, with mixed and slightly pressed curd, soft and slightly salted, smooth soft dough. He can appear under six presentations (cylindrical cap, square, briquette, double cap, heart or big heart). After the renneting cheeses are refined at least 10 days. They present then a white flowery crust, and account at least 45 % of fat matter.
The zone of naming of Neufchâtel includes a municipality of the Oise: Quincampoix-Flouzy.
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Calvados : Decree of 11/09/1984
cider or poiré brandy obtained by distillation of cider or poiré stemming from apples or from harvested pears, manipulated and transformed inside the zone of naming.
A minimum period of a month, while fermenting, has to be spent between the extraction of the juice and the distillation. The brandy has to be between 40°C and 45°C.
The zone of naming of the Calvados includes some municipalities of the Oise situated in Coudray Saint Germer's cantons, Formerie, Songeons, Auneuil, Beauvais, Grandvilliers and Marseille in Beauvaisis.
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Champagne : Decree of 29/06/1936
The naming is exclusively reserved for wines harvested and treated completely on the zone of naming which includes several municipalities of Aisne situated in the cantons of: Condé en Brie, Château-Thierry, Charly, Soissons and Vailly.
Wines must be converted into wine according to the local manners from whole transported grapes until the installations of pressing. The champagne is a sparkling wine.
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Salty meadows of the Bay of the Somme : Decree of 30/03/07
Can benefit from the protected designation of origin "Salty Meadows of the Bay of the Somme" the cooled meat, except the cooled defrosted meat, stemming from lambs of less than twelve months old, and which answers in the conditions of production defined by the present decree.
One of the conditions of production is a period of minimum 75 days maritime pasture, during the lambs stay on the autonomous sectors of identified pasture.
The minimal duration of breeding of lambs before their slaughter is of 135 days.

Zone of pasture:
The zone of maritime pasture is constituted of the placed salty swamps, from the "Pointe de Saint-Quentin" to the lighthouse of Hourdel in the Bay of the Somme and from the "Pointe of Routhiauville" to the "Pointe du Haut-Blanc" in the Bay of Authie, in the departments of the Somme and Pas-de-Calais.

Cattle-breeding area:
Pas-de-Calais (62): Berck, Colline-Beaumont, Conchil-le-Temple, Groffliers, Verton, Waben Somme ( 80 ): Arrest, Arry, Bernay-en-Ponthieu, Boismont, Brutelles, Cahon, Cambron, Cayeux-sur-Mer, Crotoy, Estrébœuf, Favières, Fort-Mahon-Plage, Grand-Laviers, Lanchères, Mons-Boubert, Nampont, Noyelles-sur-Mer, Pendé, Ponthoile, Port-le-Grand, Quend, Regnière-Écluse, Rue, Saigneville, Saint-Quentin-en-Tourmont, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Vercourt, Villers-sur-Authie, Vron, Woignarue.
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Agriculture Biologique :

The organic farming establishes a mode of production which finds its originality in the appeal to cultural practices and of breeding worried about the respect for the natural balances. So, It excludes the use of the chemicals of synthesis, GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS and limits the use of intrants.
The profits which the company can obtain from the organic farming are multiple in terms of creation of activities and jobs, conservation of the quality of grounds, biodiversity, air and water. This mode of production allows to experiment in true size environment-friendly innovative practices which may be more widely developed in agriculture.
Its modes of transformation privilege the development of the natural characteristics of products.
(source : http://agriculture.gouv.fr).
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Label rouge :

The Red Label gives evidence that a product possesses a set of specific characteristics establishing a superior-quality level to that of a common similar product.
Products which can benefit from a Red label are food products (among which the products of the sea) and not food and not transformed farm produces (ex: flowers).
In all the stages of the production and the elaboration, the product has to answer requirements which can be clarified in specification sheets, updated periodically. Organoleptic tests must be necessarily realized to demonstrate the gustative quality of the product candidate to the Label.
The Red label cannot apply to a product under label of origin or to a "local wine".
Any demand aiming at the recognition of a Red Label by ratification of a specifications is deposited, by a grouping of producers or transformers by which was recognized the quality of body of defence and management, with the national Institute of the origin and the quality ( INAO).
The ratification is pronounced, on proposition of the INAO, by an order of the minister of agriculture and the Minister in charge of the consumption.
The respect for specifications by the operators is checked by certifying bodies accredited by the French committee of accreditation (COTAIL COAT) and approved by the INAO, towards their independence, impartiality, skill and the efficiency of their controls.
(source : http://agriculture.gouv.fr).
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Lamb from Butcher’s : Specifications number CC/61/99
Détenteur : Agneau d’Or
Ces agneaux élevés avec leur mère pendant 60 jours minimum reçoivent une alimentation complémentaire 100% végétale, minérale et vitaminique. Ils sont élevés dans les respect des bonnes pratiques d’élevage. Ils sont identifiés et contrôlés des élevages au consommateur.

"Porcs charcutiers" : Specifications number CC/20/03
Holder : Promotion Association "Le Porc Royal"
The way these porks are bred respect the right pracices of breeding. They are fattened on straw and fed with at least 70% of cereals, feeds made with cereals and peas. They are identified and controlled from the farms to the consumers.

Pork Meat : Specifications number CC/24/01
Holder : SCIA "Le Porc de l’Aisne"
These porks are fed with at least 75% of cereals, feeds made with cereals and leguminous plants. The animals come from farms respecting the right practices of breeding. The meat is followed up and identified from the farms to the selling places or the delivery.

Pork Meat : Specifications number CC/60/02
Holder : COBEVIAL
These porks are bred in farms respecting the right practices of breeding. The product is selected for its quality. The meat comes from animals who are identified and followed up from the farms to the delivery (consumers or shops).

Freshness Chicory : Specifications number CC/57/00
Holder : FRAILEG
Pieces of chicory are picked 24 hours at the most before being sent. All of them are cooled in order to preserve a crispy product. They are followed up and checked from the field to the consumers.
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