Checkmate International (CMi) has received an extension of scope for the Eurep-Gap standard. The certification body, one of the first three to be approved by the European Retailer Produce Working Group, is now fully qualified to provide inspection services for the international scheme for good agricultural practice.

CMi also audits the UK's Assured Produce Scheme, which it is benchmarking against Eurep-Gap.

Technical manager at APS Mark Phippen said that members that are already compliant with the assurance scheme will need make only minor enhancements to existing practices to fulfil Eurep-Gap criteria, a process that APS promises to oversee. He added that UK growers in the APS were in a good position to embrace Eurep-Gap in time with the tough January 2003 compliance deadline set by several supermarket customers.

'Now in its fifth year, the APS is a well established scheme,' he said. 'Growers who have been part of it since the beginning have undergone two audits already so they are more used to being audited.'