Quality & Sustainability

Our standards, our certifications, and an honest account of where we stand on sustainability.

— SECTION 1 — QUALITY FRAMEWORK —

Quality systems that speak for themselves.

At China Business Ltd, quality is not a promise — it is a documented, audited, and independently verified framework. Our Integrated Quality Management System is regularly audited by SGS Hong Kong, one of the world's leading inspection, verification, testing and certification companies.

The system is built on a set of clearly defined Policy Values and Commitments covering every aspect of our operations and supply chain relationships:

• Quality and Safety Policy

• Allergen Policy

• Continuing Product Guarantee Policy

• Ethical Trading Values

• Labour Rights and Dignity at Work Policy

• Compliance with Requirements Policy

The full policy statement text is available for download — we make it accessible because transparency is part of the standard, not an afterthought. Download here.

ISO 22000:2018 — Food Safety Management System

CBL holds current ISO 22000:2018 certification — the internationally recognised standard for food safety management systems. This certification covers our brokerage and agency operations and is renewed annually through independent audit.

ISO 22000 is not a box-ticking exercise. It requires systematic identification of food safety hazards, documented control measures, and ongoing monitoring — all of which directly inform how we vet suppliers, review documentation, and manage quality on behalf of our clients.

ISO 22000 certificate of our Company.

→ Certification Body: SGS

→ Quality Consultant: Havering Radcliffe Limited

— SECTION 2 — WHAT QUALITY MEANS IN PRACTICE —

Four layers. All of them matter.

In our product categories, quality is not a single thing. It operates on four distinct levels — and a supplier who passes on one can fail on another. Our verification process covers all four.

External Quality — what you can see and taste.

Colour, appearance, aroma, taste, moisture content, and visual grade. These are the qualities most buyers check first — and which unscrupulous suppliers learn to manipulate for samples while compromising on bulk shipments. We verify bulk production, not just samples.

Internal Quality — what instruments measure.

Volatile oil content in cassia. Allicin levels in dehydrated garlic. Gel strength in agar agar. These internal parameters determine functional performance in food manufacturing — and they are the ones most commonly misrepresented in documentation. We require and verify laboratory test results against the actual shipment, not a reference sample.

Regulatory Quality — what authorities enforce.

Pesticide residues, heavy metal levels, microbial counts, ETO contamination, allergen declarations, coumarin content in cassia, lead levels — the list of regulatory parameters for food ingredients entering the UK and EU is extensive and changes regularly. We track these requirements and ensure supplier documentation is current, accurate, and relevant to your specific market.

Documented Quality — what the paperwork actually says.

Certifications expire. Lab reports reference wrong batches. Organic certificates cover different farms than the one that packed your shipment. We review the documentation chain critically — not as a formality, but because we have seen every variation of documentation fraud in three decades of working in this market.

We didn't build these verification standards in a boardroom. We built them from direct experience of what happens when they're absent.

— SECTION 3 — SUSTAINABILITY: AN HONEST ACCOUNT —

What we can honestly say — and what we cannot.

Sustainability matters to us. It also matters increasingly to our clients, to regulators, and to the food supply chain as a whole. The EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, supply chain transparency legislation in the UK and Germany, and the Paris Agreement's requirements on corporate transition plans are all moving in one direction — and we are aware of where that direction leads.

We want to be straightforward about our current position, because straightforwardness is more useful than a policy that looks impressive on paper but cannot be substantiated in practice.

What we do now.

As a broker and agent, CBL's direct environmental footprint is limited. We do not operate factories, control packaging lines, or manage logistics. What we can do — and do — is incorporate sustainability criteria into how we evaluate and select suppliers:

• We ask suppliers about their environmental certifications and practices as part of our vetting process.

• We flag to clients where a supplier's practices fall short of what their own customers or regulators may require.

• We will not represent suppliers whose labour practices or environmental record present reputational risk to our clients.

• Our ISO 22000 framework includes ethical trading values and labour rights commitments that apply to our supply chain relationships.

What we are working towards.

We are in the process of formally incorporating sustainability criteria into our ISO 22000 quality management framework. When that work is complete, our sustainability commitments will be documented, audited, and verifiable — not just stated. Until then, we prefer to describe what we actually do rather than commit to targets we cannot yet measure.

What we expect our suppliers to uphold.

Our supplier vetting process requires, at minimum, compliance with the labour rights, environmental, and food safety standards applicable in the buyer's destination market. For UK and EU buyers, this increasingly means alignment with EU deforestation regulations, supply chain due diligence requirements, and pesticide and contaminant standards that go beyond Chinese domestic requirements. We make these expectations explicit in our supplier relationships.

We recognise this is an area where expectations are rising faster than many suppliers — and some agents — are moving. We would rather acknowledge that gap honestly than paper over it.