System Users 

HORTICERT offers certification of peat substitutes along the entire value chain, from the extraction of raw materials to the production of the final substrate. HORTICERT certification is therefore available for different types of businesses. 

The following businesses can obtain certification for their products:

  • Agricultural and forestry operations vary from small independent farms to large plantations and supply their commodities directly or through traders to a first collector.
  • First collectors typically receive raw materials from multiple agricultural and forestry operations. A first collector is often also a processing plant, such as a sawmill or composting plant.
  • Processing plants (or processing units) produce substrate components from raw materials. Often, raw materials pass through various processing facilities until a finished component is produced. Examples of processing plants include sawmills and wood fiber plants for the production of wood-based peat substitutes, composting plants for the production of green waste compost or bark humus, and plants for the de-husking and defibering of coconut-based peat substitutes.
  • Growing media mixing plants are special processing plants that produce the final product, the finished potting soil or final substrate, from various components. Often, growing media mixing plants also have processing plants for the production or further processing of peat substitutes for their own growing media production. Usually, the mixing plant is connected to a filling plant.
  • Traders (also import and export) buy and sell raw materials or substrate components without processing the material themselves. They may be equipped with warehouses or operate a pure drop shipment business and do not sell to end consumers.