How compound ingredients change your organic percentage
A compound ingredient must be expanded into its sub-ingredients and each one counted separately, apportioned by its percentage of the compound. Treating a bought-in blend as a single organic or conventional line is the most common source of wrong organic percentages, and it can move a product a full tier in either direction.
Last updated: 28 September 2026 · Written by Fliss Roberts, ANZOC
Why one line becomes five
Buying a ready-made tomato base, spice blend or bakery premix means buying a recipe inside your recipe. The organic percentage rules do not care where the line on the batch sheet came from — they care about the agricultural ingredients actually present in the finished product. So a compound ingredient is expanded and its parts counted individually.
This cuts both ways. An 80% organic premix recorded as "conventional" understates your percentage and can cost you a tier you had earned. A "certified organic" premix that turns out to contain conventional sub-ingredients overstates it, which is the more dangerous direction.
A worked example
A pasta sauce uses 200 g of a bought-in tomato base that is, by the supplier's own composition sheet, 70% organic tomatoes, 20% water, 8% organic onion and 2% conventional starch.
| Sub-ingredient | % of compound | As-added weight | Counts as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic tomatoes | 70% | 140 g | Organic agricultural |
| Water | 20% | 40 g | Excluded |
| Organic onion | 8% | 16 g | Organic agricultural |
| Conventional starch | 2% | 4 g | Non-organic agricultural |
What to ask the supplier for
- Full composition by percentage, covering every sub-ingredient including water, salt, carriers and processing aids.
- The organic status of each sub-ingredient, not just of the blend as a whole.
- A current certificate naming the compound product, with scope and expiry date.
- Notice of reformulation. Ask in writing to be told when composition changes. Suppliers reformulate without telling customers, and it is your percentage that moves.
Compounds inside compounds
Sub-ingredients can themselves be compound. A spice blend inside a marinade inside your product is three levels deep, and each level needs the same expansion. Work from the innermost outwards, and keep the working — the calculation is only as auditable as the trail behind it.
ANZOC's recipe tool does this expansion automatically for any ingredient recorded as compound, apportioning each sub-ingredient by its percentage of its parent at any depth.
Questions people ask
- What is a compound ingredient?
- An ingredient that is itself made of several ingredients — a bought-in sauce, premix, blend, marinade or concentrate. For organic percentage purposes it is expanded into its sub-ingredients rather than counted as one line.
- Can I treat a certified organic compound ingredient as 100% organic?
- Only if the certificate and composition confirm that every agricultural sub-ingredient is organic. A compound can be certified and still contain permitted non-organic sub-ingredients, which is why the breakdown matters.
- How deep do I have to go?
- All the way down. If a sub-ingredient is itself compound, it is expanded too. The calculation is based on the agricultural ingredients actually present, however many purchase orders away they were assembled.
- What if the supplier reformulates?
- Your percentage changes from the batch that used the new formulation. Ask suppliers in writing to notify you of composition changes, and re-run the calculation each time one arrives.
Sources
- USDA NOP — Calculating percentage organic in multi-ingredient products
- Regulation (EU) 2018/848 on organic production and labelling
- Organic Standards Regulations 2025 — New Zealand Legislation
This page is general guidance, not certification advice. Your certifier's decision is the one that counts — check anything that changes what goes on a label with them before you print.