On August 23, 2005, the NOP program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a statement that agricultural products can be certified and labeled in accordance with the Organic Food Production Act of 1990 and its implementation rules, regardless of the end use. This provision then allows products such as soap to be certified under the Act.

Some people in the organic industry expressed their concern to NOP that the "organic" certification and labeling of soap violated the Organic Food Production Act. They believe that soap, glycerin and water are by-products of the saponification process, which hydrolyzes the oil by adding alkali. The Organic Standards Committee of the United States has determined that glycerin is a synthetic substance listed in the national list of permitted and prohibited substances. According to Article 205.601 on crop production, insecticide soap is allowed to be used.

NOP disagrees with this view and believes that NOP regulations are aimed at the ingredients and processing inputs of an end product, rather than the nature of the end product itself. This allows agricultural products and permitted synthetic products to produce a wide range of products that can be certified organic, regardless of end use.

NOP also emphasized that the identification of these products should also be consistent with that of other certified organic processed products, that is, if the product contains saponified oil, the names of organic and synthetic ingredients used to produce soap must be printed on the information page. If the saponified oil is produced by another process, it should be stated in brackets, such as "saponified oil" (organic coconut oil, potassium hydroxide), water, glycerin, and beet pigment.