Nicotine Contamination Prevention Policy

Based on recent guidelines by the European Tea Committee (dated 01.12.2011), the need to prevent any Nicotine contamination to teas has become essential to all tea producers exporting teas to the EU. In order to comply with these guidelines the following steps will be taken to ensure the same:

  • All factory workers must wash and disinfect hands prior to entering the processing areas, especially after smoking.
  • Any worker handling Green leaf or processed teas or partly processed teas in any form or process is banned from smoking or chewing tobacco at the work place.
  • Field workers are not permitted to smoke with in a tea field to ensure that cross contamination is avoided at all cost. All smoking is to be carried out only outside the field after which concerned workers must wash and disinfect their hands before resuming their work and coming into contact with raw materials.
  • Agro – Chemical used in tea fields must NOT contain Nicotine or Tobacco mixtures under any circumstances due to the threat of residues contaminating teas.
  • Use of compost prepared from waste Tobacco plants is also not permitted due to the likely hood of Nicotine traces permeating into the finished products through the soil.
  • Use of cleaning agents in Factories to wash floors and machinery or cleaning agents used in fields to wash spraying, pruning equipment or cleaning agents used to clean transport vehicles must NOT contain any Nicotine or Tobacco extract.
  • No fuel used in factories is to contain any part of a Tobacco plant.
  • Factories must have designated smoking areas that are suitably marked with boards and must be located far away from processing and storage areas for Craigmore Plantations (India) Private Limited.

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