Wolf & Associates, founded by Bill Wolf, has a network of consultants that have been helping clients navigate the often-confusing maze of organic rules since 1995.

“It has focused all of its energy on any type of organic consulting; it’s all fair game,” said John Foster, chief operating officer of the New Castle, Virginia-based company. “It started off in terms of soil management practices under organic principles and has expanded since then.”

John Foster, COO, Wolf & Associates

Today, Wolf & Associates' services include offering advice on certification, building an organic and sustainable work culture, compliance, and farming practices and providing ongoing support with strategic direction.

The company also offers advice on how to look at branded products and what needs to be done in terms of sourcing or co-manufacturing for a product to be labeled organic.

Wolf & Associates bases its counsel and decisions on the principles and philosophies of IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements) and the standards of the USDA’s National Organic Program.

“The ‘800-pound new gorilla’ at the company is helping clients move towards compliance of the Strengthening Organic Enforcement (SOE) initiative,” Foster said. “These are new regulations that were enhancements to the current National Organic Program that were finalized and publicized in January of 2023.”

The deadline for SOE's implementation is March 19, 2024, so the vast majority of work over the last year for Wolf & Associates has been in getting its existing clients to move toward compliance with the new rule. There’s also a horde of new clients looking to get certified for the first time.

“In the past, they didn’t have to be organic certified,” Foster said, explaining there are roughly 46,000 certified organic operations in the world right now. “There’s another 5,000-6,000 that will need to be certified for the first time under SOE, so a great deal of our business is about hitting that change.”  

Bill Wolf, Founder and CEO, Wolf & Associates

The fact that many companies didn’t even know about these changes until late last spring has made it a busy time for Wolf & Associates.

“We saw a tremendous rush of new business starting in May and are full throttle, servicing twice as many clients as we had [in 2022],” Foster said. 

The growth strategy for Wolf & Associates has always been aggressive. “We have a growth strategy year over year just on revenue, and if the organic industry as a whole grows at 10 percent, I’ve always felt like 20 percent is an applicable growth rate for us, so that’s my target for us," Foster said. "We will easily make that in 2023.” 

“We saw a tremendous rush of new business starting in May and are full throttle, servicing twice as many clients as we had [in 2022]." - John Foster

“We knew SOE was coming two years ago, though didn’t know when, and we prepared accordingly,” Foster said. “That involved developing communication tools, marketing tools, and building up our associate network so we could handle this growth. We haven’t had to say ‘no’ to anyone.” 

He also believes there will be a large rush for consulting capacity even after the compliance date because so many operations will realize they are not as prepared as they thought they were.

One of the facets of SOE is there are clearer and more extensive requirements for organic inspectors, who are needed for certification. A challenge the company has faced is that a lot of those skill sets are also very useful in consulting, so a lot of the consultants are being pulled into that aspect, making it harder to find seasoned people. 

In 2024, Wolf & Associates will be focusing on a very different set of challenges, anticipating a rise in demand from start-up CPG-branded companies who aren’t sourcing ingredients.

“They outsource label development and marketing plans and distribution and hire people to do those steps instead of manufacturing it themselves,” Foster said. “There are thousands of new branded companies who need help in getting certified for the first time and understanding the regulations for their operations, so we’ve been crafting a really streamlined process to handle with a pre-set menu, where you can go in for 15-20 hours and get most of the certification taken care of.” 

“We knew SOE was coming two years ago ... and we prepared accordingly. We haven’t had to say ‘no’ to anyone.” - John Foster

That service will be primarily useful for start-up and emerging companies, but there are a lot of those coming around each year.

“What we’ve found is there are some misunderstandings to certification requirements that makes it seem less obtainable than it is,” he said. “We’ve been able to figure out a pretty good template for a set price and timeline.”

And while Wolf & Associates' core business has been on organic certification and organic input development, the company has really built up its capacity for organic business development and strategy in recent years, and those sectors are expected to see strong growth as well.