OF&G :: The Blog

It’s that time of year again. You know the one. It’s when we all say things along the lines of “Blimey, it comes around faster each year.”

Without the benefit of deeper analysis, you can probably sum up 2009 in organics as “not too bad”. Let’s face it, it certainly could have been worse.

This time last year, and into the start of this, we were wrestling with talk of a “feed break” to help struggling producers. It was very badly portrayed as an idea to lower the defences of organics when the going got tough. It wasn’t that and it never got beyond a talking point, but it didn’t give us a very positive beginning to 2009.

From there we were all still wrestling with the realities of the economy and still wondering how bad it was all going to get. That’s where some of the good news kicks in for many. Figures that have been knocking around in recent weeks suggest there was no collapse of the market for organic food. Some dips, yes. But demand remains and most producers have reasons to be positive as we go into a new year.

Across the sector we’ve all felt some pain, but we go on and there’s still so much to do.

The summer saw the Food Standards Agency release a report that baffled many knowledgeable people by claiming that there was no nutritional benefit to organic food. Putting aside that organics doesn’t sell itself on nutrition, it’s going to become pretty clear in 2010 that this was wrong and unhelpful. It made for some very negative headlines as the naysayers were given their head in the national media.

As far as we’re concerned the rest of the year held many positives. Our National Organic Cereals event in July was a tremendous success that saw one of the biggest and most useful dedicated gatherings of organic farmers, buyers, processors, merchants and service providers ever seen. Connections were made and information was shared. It was a truly useful event and will be repeated, in another part of the country, in 2010.

Following this we held our first conference aimed at processors. It was called Selling Organics: What’s the Story? and took a long hard look at what we are saying to our customers and how we are saying it. Held at London’s South Bank University it was attended by almost all of the key people in the sector and was very well received. Again, it focused on practicalities, not rhetoric – something that has been missing from the discussion for too long.

Highlighted at the conference was the Sustain-led OrganicUK initiative (discussed plenty of times in this blog). This hugely positive bid to attract industry funding and matched EU money to promote organic to a wider audience is on course now and we will learn in the New Year if it will be successful in getting Euro cash. It has been heartening to see the sector putting its money behind it – from the big brand names to individual farmers and processors who can see the benefits.

Every year brings its challenges for a growing part of the food and farming landscape, and always will. But if we were to sum it up we’d have to say it’s been a year of progress, certainly for OF&G and hopefully for its licensees and the organic sector in general.

Thank you for dropping in to this blog this year and we’ll try and keep it relevant throughout next.

Merry Christmas and a happy prosperous New Year to all.

As all of the doom and gloom headlines predicting the recession-related death of the organic sector start to fade into the mists of time, we may now being seeing some more reliable figures that tell something closer to the true story.

We said all along that, not forgetting the pain of pig and poultry producers, the sector as a whole was operating on a fairly even keel. Yes, there has been hardship, along with the rest of the economy, but we haven’t seen anything like the wholesale shutdown of organics. And nor would we have expected to.

Now research body, Organic Monitor, has taken a look at the figures over the longer term and highlighted some of the patterns around Europe, as reported here by FoodNavigator.com.

What the data seems to highlight is that some UK retailers pre-empted their organic customers by assuming they would buy less organic products and promptly whipping many lines from the shelves. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy of falling sales, of course. But as demand failed to follow their sales prediction charts down to the bottom of the cliff, they’ve had to ramp-up their offerings again.

Organic Monitor suggests single digit growth for organics across Europe in 2009. I think anybody in the industry would have taken that if it was offered as a guarantee at the start of the year. While UK organics was apparently among the worst hit, it’s still kicking and preparing to take on 2010 with renewed vigour.

Last night was a big one for licensee, Jess Vaughan, who featured prominently in BBC2′s Hairy Bikers’ Twelve Days of Christmas.

Jess (left) and her friend sing to the nation!

The well-known two wheeled cooks whipped up what they described as one of their best ever dishes on a makeshift kitchen in one of Jess’s Gloucestershire fields.

And why were they there? “It’s the only place to go for cream. It’s the best there is, man.” A ringing endorsement indeed!

The pair went on to praise the quality of the cream from Jess’s Ladies numerous times and credited it with making their Christmassy Panacotta the special dish they profess it to be.

Jess explains what makes her milk and cream so good and gets to try out the finished food – not to mention indulging in a spot of festive singing… Very brave on national telly, but nicely done!

Jess told us the rather large film crew spent a whole day on the farm and that she loved the experience.

You can take a look for yourself on the BBC iPlayer (until they remove it). Jess’s part starts at 39’58″, if you don’t want to watch all of it…

Just as an addendum to the last post; the Facebook page for the EU organic logo competition, containing just some examples of the entries, makes for interesting viewing.

It’s only a tiny fraction of the 3400 or so total hopefuls, but it at least gives some insight into some of the options we’re not being given the chance to vote on.

Today we see an interesting take on the EU organic logo vote, with one German lawyer suggesting that people vote ‘no’ by emailing the Commission.

A ‘no’ option has not been made available on the voting page – you have to choose one of the shortlisted options. Quoted in a piece on the Organic-Market.info website, the lawyer in question, Hans-Peter Schmidt, raises some interesting concerns about the choices and the process that led to them.

At the time of writing there have been just short of 30,000 votes on the official website.

Will you be voting? Or even voting ‘no’?

It’s really good to hear that Waitrose has put its weight behind the OrganicUK campaign to fund a three-year promotional bid for organics with EU matched funding.

We’ve been behind the initiative from day one, as have many of the country’s leading organic brands, not to mention an array of farmers and smaller processors.

Having bust through its £250,000 pledge target (in fact exceeding it by about £17k as of now) the organisers at Sustain are now pressing on to try and reach £300,000. Every penny will count because it can be matched with the EU money that’s available if the bid succeeds.

Many other EU member states have taken advantage of the cash over the last few years, some multiple times, but we’ve never got our act together in the UK – until now.

The bid would see a campaign highlighting the key benefits of organic food and farming across different media and utilising PR and social networks.

Well done to Waitrose for giving its backing to the sector in such a tangible way and there’s still time for others to get on board as well. It’s for everyone’s benefit.