OF&G :: The blog

While we attend plenty of shows each year, it’s been some time since OF&G was at Natural and Organic Products Europe. So, with a renewed vigour we addressed that this year and set up a not insubstantial stand along with three of our licensees.

Our visit to this year’s show, at Olympia, London, was a roaring success. It was great to get face-to-face with existing licensees as well as to meet many, many potential new ones. The whole show team, Steven, Ruth, Joanna and (for one day only) Mark, found the whole experience very positive. The same could be said of the licensees who set up their displays with us and managed to give the whole thing the feel of a small OF&G marketplace!

They were: Miller, farmer and bread and cake mix maker, Rebecca Raynor, who heads her successful Glebe Farm brand; Brenda and Lucy Clarke with their team from Trevarno Organic Skin Care who showed of a great range of high quality products; Al Sharif, of Harrisons and Crosfield, purveyors of carefully selected, and beautifully packaged, teas.

Here are some pictures to sum up the show (click on them for bigger versions):

And the really good news? We’ll be back next year!

Something we don’t get to do as often as we would like is get face-to-face with our licensees, but it’s by far the best way we have of learning about how we’re doing.

So to improve on this we’re trialling a programme of informal local meet-ups when members of our team are on their travels around the country. We’re always on the move, but quite often we’re in and out of an area faster than the proverbial rat up a drainpipe.

But when there’s a bit of breathing space or an overnight stay, we’ll be offering licensees in the area the chance to sit down with us for a drink and a bit of two-way feedback. Whichever member of the team happens to be in your neck of the woods won’t always be our expert in your field, but they will be happy to take your comments and questions back to HQ to be addressed by the right folks.

Kicking us off on this programme, Certification Officer Katie Owens will be in East Lothian on Thursday (Feb 21). We’ve tried to contact as many licensees as we can in the area, but if you haven’t heard from us and would like to meet up with Katie for a drink, chat and to meet some of your fellow licensees, please feel free to drop her line at katie.owens@organicfarmers.org.uk.

Hopefully we’ll see many more of you in this way over the coming months.