OF&G :: The Blog

The Guardian today carries a very interesting take on the sale of Cadbury to American firm, Kraft, by Green & Black’s president and founder, Craig Sams.

Having been sold to Cadbury, Green & Black’s is now, of course, going to be part of the Kraft porfolio and that raises questions about what it will do with the organic and ethical brand.

Here’s what Craig thinks…

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.

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’?

So now we know what the compulsory EU organic logo could look like. But after all the (excruciating) build-up, it has to be said that the response here at the Old Estate Yard is one of being distinctly underwhelmed by the options.

We have three shortlisted finalists from a quite impressive 3422 entries. The trouble is, they all seem to be a bit dull and uninformative.

That’s not to be unkind to the artists who created them, who no doubt put in a lot of thought and effort, but this is a BIG thing for organics. Not only is it the introduction of a compulsory logo for the first time, but it should be an opportunity to strike a chord with consumers and create something that is instantly recognisable and understood as organic. We don’t really think any of the three chosen by the judges are going to achieve that.

What do you think?

These are your choices for the EU organic logo. So which will it be???

Even if you’re thinking “my five-year-old could have come up with something more exciting”, these are the options we’ve got. So, which will you vote for? It’s open to every EU citizen (though how they can rule out mischievous votes from beyond the Euro borders is hard to say…).

There is, I think, a clear favourite in our office, but everyone needs to cast their vote before the end of January, which you can do here:

http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/logo/voting/voting_en.htm

Choose wisely…

[For details on the new labeling regulations, take a look at this page on our website. You can also follow some more of our thinking on the topic in this piece by Jess Halliday, at FoodNavigator.com]

Taiwan is marking its Organic Agriculture Day today and there are some comments from the Speaker of the country’s legislature that sum up a few key issues, as reported in the Taiwan News.

Much like what we heard at our Selling Organics: What’s the Story? conference last month, he’s talking about the growing scarcity of resources and the need to capitalise on forward planning and better explanation of what ‘organic’ means with regard to food.

And while organic is only a tiny, tiny part of the farming picture in Taiwan right now, they obviously have ambition and pro-active plans (is Australia listening?).

Sometimes, having to adhere to strict regulation can seem burdensome. However, especially when it comes to food, we have adapted and accepted the need for safeguards and reassurances.

Sometimes there are challenges, but when it comes to it, the consumer is better off knowing that there are governmental and non-governmental bodies looking out for their interests. When there is just one case of deception relating to organic food it is big headline news, precisely because it is so rare.

In some ways, we take this safety net for-granted, particularly in Europe and North America. That’s why the pains organic production in Australia seems to feel on an ongoing basis seem so alien to us. I think we often assume their structures and values almost precisely mirror our own (albeit that they take sport even more seriously than we do!).

We mentioned on here a while back (in May, actually) that things were not looking positive for organic regulation Down Under. Now comes a story from the Sydney Morning Herald about pork being passed-off as organic in restaurants. There’s some suggestion that it’s largely unintentional, at least on the part of the restaurateurs, but it highlights the yawning chasm between the application of organic standards in much of the rest of the world compared to Australia.

Part of the backdrop to this is, it seems, that Australia hasn’t really embraced organic food and farming. But of course without a solid regulatory framework that consumers can trust without question, how will the market ever really get going? The suggestions in a number of pieces we’ve read recently are that there really isn’t much in the way of political will to apply a solution there (Psst, Aussie Government, we have a model you can use…).

Perhaps we should work on marketing to Australia with the message that when our exports say organic, they mean organic. That might kick them into life.

We will get off this topic soon – probably. But having just come across this article from The Organic Centre, in the US, it seemed to be well worth sharing. It appears to be the most scientific and thorough assessment of the controversial FSA-funded report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that we have come across yet.

If the topic interests you, it’s well worth a read.