Market Surveillance Project Update
With the new heating season fast approaching, ENplus® Head Office has, once again, been conducting the Market Surveillance Project. This initiative is an additional measure regularly taken by the scheme to ensure the high quality of certified products where ENplus® certified bags are randomly selected from across the European market in order to assure compliance with the ENplus® standards.
Over the past few months, 43 pellet bags belonging to ENplus® certified Producers & Traders were collected from a number of countries and analysed by ENplus®-listed testing bodies according to the ENplus® requirements. The results assisted with the identification of issues such as counterfeit bags, usage of non-approved bags by certified companies and those that occurred after the bags left the premises of the certified companies.
In cases where non-conformities were identified, the certified companies were contacted and required to address the issues in accordance with their complaint management systems by conducting detailed investigations under the supervision of a Certification Body.
The Market Surveillance Project is just one of many activities the scheme conducts to guarantee ENplus® wood pellet quality. As of the beginning of 2025, certified companies bagging pellets introduced a serial number to their pellet bags which is a major improvement in traceability when quality issues are reported by end-consumers. Additionally, unannounced sampling of all Producers as well as Traders who bag pellets introduced as part of the revision of the ENplus® scheme at the beginning of 2024 is also contributing to confirming that quality is maintained either before or after scheduled annual inspections. The ENplus® scheme is based on rigorous set of requirements and quality assessments that have been developed and enhanced over the years to ensure that only high-quality pellets are brought to market. The scheme requires certified companies to have a proper quality management system in place in addition to implementing regular self-monitoring procedures in order to make certain that their products maintain compliance with ENplus® standards.