Certification scheme for wood packing material

Having approved the written quality assurance system documentation and physically audited the company’s working practice the Danish Agricultural and Fisheries Agency issues a certificate including the unique company registration number. The Danish Agricultural and Fisheries Agency offers a list of approved companies.

List of approved companies

Notice on the documentation requirements for treated wood

In conclusion, the Danish Wood Packaging Materials Treatment and Marking Scheme ensures that wood packaging materials marked with the internationally recognized and protected mark have been constructed of debarked wood treated in compliance with all provisions of ISPM-15.

Certification may be granted to:

• Companies carrying out heat treatment (by conventional or dielectric heating) of wood (including finished packaging materials)
• Companies manufacturing, repairing or remanufacturing) wood packaging materials from treated wood.

Companies must have established a detailed internal quality assurance system, ensuring that:

• for treatment facilities, all pieces of wood to be marked have been debarked and heat treated, reaching a core temperature of:
  • ​​​​for conventional heating: at least 56oC for at least 30 minutes
  • for dielectric heating: at least 60oC for at least 1 minute
  • treated wood is nowhere mixed with untreated wood
  • and consignments of treated wood are documented in accordance with Danish requirements.
• for companies manufacturing, repairing, remanufacturing or otherwise changing an ISPM-15 marked wood packaging unit, all pieces of wood used for wood packaging materials to be marked has been debarked and heat treated as required or alternatively treated outside of Denmark in accordance with ISPM-15
• treated wood is nowhere mixed with untreated wood, and that each unit of packaging materials is marked with the Danish mark as required.

The Company Guidelines issued by the Danish Agricultural and Fisheries Agency specify procedures that must be outlined in the quality assurance system, including procedures for:

• debarking
• calibration of temperature loggers and settings
• stacking of wood in drying room / kiln
• early identification and handling of treatment failures
• marking of wood or finished packaging materials
• ensuring the marking of treated wood only
• segregation of treated and untreated wood
• repair and remanufacture, in accordance with ISPM-15
• treatment specifications on in- and outgoing trading documents
• instruction of employees.

Only certified companies may use the Danish version of the protected mark outlined in ISPM-15, Annex 2, on wood packaging materials. The ISPM-15 mark has the following design:

XX represents the country code, DK for companies registered in Denmark, 000 represents the company-identifier code, in Denmark the registration number is four digits, YY represents the treatment used to treat the wood packaging material.

The complete mark must be permanent and preferably visible on at least two sides of the unit. Red and orange colors should be avoided.

The treatment code ’HT’ (or 'DH', ‘SF’ or ´MB’) must appear after the combined country and producer codes. It must appear on a separate line or be separated by a hyphen if presented on the same line as the other codes.

Prior to the 2009-revision of ISPM-15, the approved Danish mark included the code ‘DB’ (for debarked) and the codes order was as follows. Note that according to ISPM-15, countries should at import accept previously produced wood packaging material carrying a mark consistent with earlier versions of ISPM-15.