I love Oregon and thier label requirements. This is what they said to us

Business and Marketing
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First off,

I love Oregon for establishing such a rigid standard and requiring people to stand behind whats in their bottle. Below is some email traffic from them concerning URB.

Second,

I really dislike our label. it’s a close second to my dislike for our website. First of all the label quality is dogshit. Second, there is barely any information on it. Nothing about us, nothing about the product…etc. I would like some suggestions from others on services that help in this area of marketing and design. I feel like what we are and what our website/label communicates is way off. There has got to be a service out there who takes everything I have posted on here, all the information, and redirects it in a more modern industry standard approach.

Thanks for your help and suggestions. Here is the email. I am all for it, while it may be a hassle its worth it to have QC on what people are buying and using and I wish more states would adopt it. BTW we should be OFFICIALLY LEGAL with Oregon in early August

Here’s the issue that need addressed:

URB -

  1. Please move the net contents statement to the bottom 30% of the label.

  2. Please change the word Humate to Humic Acid o the front label.

  3. Please remove the statement of "environmentally friendly”or provide qualification. Guidance from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) establishes that claims suggesting a product is “safe” or “friendly” for the earth, or the environment, must qualify the claim by explaining the basis for the claim. The qualification must describe what specific aspects or attributes of the product make it “safe” or “friendly” and must be clear, prominent, and understandable. The statement should use plain language, in close proximity to the claim, and be in sufficiently large type to be easily read. For more guidance on environmental marketing see the FTC “Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims.”

If you have any questions, at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us.

  1. Please provide the details of the manufacturing process for the Humilite so that we can verify the claim of 100% Natural.

  2. Please format the guarantee analysis headings as follows:

GUARANTEED ANALYSIS

CONTAINS NON PLANT FOOD INGREDIENTS

Soil Amending Ingredients:

  1. Please remove the statement of “Humic Acid derived from Humilite Ore”

  2. Unless you weighed each of the microbes and added up just their weight without any carrier, please remove the 00.04% guarantee. ( this one is my favorite :slight_smile: )

  3. Please correct the spelling of Bacillus and use lower case letters in species names of Bacillus pumilus and Bacillus megaterium (this is a great example of how good the guy handling this stuff currently is…:neutral_face:)

  4. Please provide an example of the format and location of the expiration date showing what manufacturing will be able to do.

  5. Please add a section on storage conditions, as is required for microbe products.

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@URBorganic
We interviewed one of their Fertilizer Specialists here: http://growersnetwork.org/industry/oregon-consumer-protection/

HOW DOES THE ODA FERTILIZER PROGRAM WORK?
There are 3 of us that implement the fertilizer program for the state. We handle all of the product registration, sampling, and inspection. Our website has about 10,000 registered products. The products we analyze are chosen at random. And, depending on the year, we can probably examine about 300 samples for full analysis. If a product claims enzymes, we must have it tested for enzymes. When nutrients are being claimed, we send it out for testing on those. The company has to submit information like heavy metal testing.

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Websites take a look at SquareSpace it’s just constant management. You pick the template and your off. You can try for free for 30 days.

Labeling labratory grade and food grade products requiring legal compliance there are specialty companies firms just for this. I have to call some old friend for names and numbers. I remember a firm in St. Louis, Mo that this is all they did.

For a design I saw that one of the site members is in graphic design and does social media marketing. I don’t remember her name. That was yesterday.

I have used the biggest and oldest of the social marketing firms in the country Aim Clear of my now home town.
They are best of the breed. There pricing structure is based on your requirements. One of the plans is based on traffic improvement to your site and improvements to your google analytics. Plus visits converted to sales. If you don’t pick them these are the key points.

Take a look.

Let me know if you want more details.

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