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.
It’s official – the OF&G/Farmers Weekly jumper is underway! I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Our handicrafts expert, Certification Officer Katie Owens, is beavering away with the knitting needles and is already a good couple of inches up from the bottom (probably called lower hem, or something, for those in the know).
She’s using only the finest materials, with the organic wool provided by Juliet at Ystrad Organics.
There’s a certain degree of excitement surrounding this event, mainly because we’re all very keen to see Certification Manager, Steve Clarkson, modelling it for the world. He’ll probably be blinded for a week by all the camera flashes when this major event occurs, but it’s all in the line of duty… Kind of.
Some industry news we’ve received that’s worth sharing:
Community Foods appoints new MD and Commercial Director
Community Foods Ltd, experts in sourcing dried fruit, nuts and seeds as well as leading organic specialist has appointed Martin Rome as Managing Director from 1st January 2010 to succeed Bill Henry who remains on the board.
Martin joined Community Foods from Whitworths in April. Martin brings over 20 years experience
in dried fruit, nuts and seeds having started his career with S&W Berisford before moving to Voicevale and latterly Whitworths for 8 years where he held the position of Purchasing Director.
Martin’s external interests include his position as chairman of FRUCOM (a European federation, representing a wide range of food products) and board member of CENTA (Combined Edible Nuts Trade Association). Martin has previously also chaired the NDFTA (British Dried Fruit Trades Association).
David Lewis is promoted to Commercial Director overseeing all of Community’s retail activities. David has been with Community for 9 years and has been responsible for establishing Community’s leading Organic Brand, Crazy Jack Organic in the home bake sector.
Next year sees new regulation from the EU on managing salmonella in turkey flocks. Any producers potentially affected by this can read more in this very well explained piece from the Welsh Poultry Centre.
As the piece points out, salmonella is not actually *that* great of an issue in the UK, but it can be elsewhere in Europe and, as we’re all Europeans now, we’re all caught in this net. There are exclusions from the new testing regime, so if you’ve got turkeys, it’s well worth a read.
We’re not sure how it happened, but some of us here missed the news that the National Institute of Agricultural Botany and The Arable Group had merged.
So, given that we missed the announcement last month, we thought it worthy of a mention here for anyone else who was too engrossed elsewhere to pick up on it!
It does seem to make sense for two leading bodies in agronomy and research to come together and realise the benefits of such a collaboration.
You can read more about it, including comments from the key players, here.
With our own staff madly slicing away for an in-house competition, we’ve been treated to some fine examples of the dark art of pumpkin carving from some of our friends too.
We’ll be revealing the OF&G entries in good time (haven’t seen them all myself yet!) but to keep things moving, here’s what others have been up to:
A first time attempt from Harper Adams student, Claire McClellan, does her credit!
Farmer, Sam Kingston, got to work on a 'Bumkin' (butternut squash x pumpkin) for this fine effort.
And one final, self indulgent addition. Design for this one is all the work of my five-year-old son. Knife wielding courtesy of his mother!
Another first timer's design - this one by a five-year-old!
Thanks to Claire and Sam for allowing us to share their efforts here. You can catch up with both of them on social networking site, Twitter. (Claire / Sam)
