OF&G :: The Blog

The day is nearly upon us. The day we will discover the one logo to rule them all.

If you’ll excuse the slightly nerdy Lord of the Rings reference, I am, of course, referring to the EU organic logo. The results of the competition held to choose this hotly anticipated item of packaging decoration are due out this week.

That’s not to say we will actually find out this week which of the three shortlisted designs have won, because this is the EU we’re dealing with. But they said we’d find out this week, so we’re cranking up the pressure…

These were the choices for the compulsory EU organic logo

You may recall that the three designs caused something of a debate around Europe as to whether the method of inviting and choosing them was entirely suitable and whether the options selected by the judges for the final vote were really the best they could find.

We had our own concerns as it appeared that the voting website allowed you to cast multiple votes. The normal situation with even the most trivial of online polls is generally to be told “No you naughty little cheat, you can’t vote again” when you attempt to show more support than is fair for one particular option.

In its most basic form this is often enforced by the use of a ‘cookie’ (a little bit of text dropped into a special folder on your computer that tells the website you have already voted). Alternatively it is done by recording the unique Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer when you vote. Sometimes both, plus other safeguards.

We couldn’t see any such protection on this vote and were able to force sequential numbers for the amount of votes cast out of the page that was loaded once a vote had been made. This worried us. We couldn’t find any relevant cookies on our machines and there was no “Don’t be naughty” message.

So the question was, did whoever put the site together simply fail to create a page that said your latest vote didn’t count because you’d already voted. Or did they just not bother to protect the vote…

Obviously someone must have the answer to this, so we emailed the organisers of the competition at the EU asking the questions posed above and seeking reassurance.

The response was deafening in its silence.

So, no doubt by now, with the poll closed, we have winner. Let’s hope whichever logo it was, the result wasn’t unduly influenced by someone who figured out they could game the vote. And no, we didn’t.

Hopefully we’re utterly wrong about this and doing the organisers of the competition a great disservice. If so though, it would have been nice for them to tell us that.

We’ll let you know which logo was picked as soon as we do!

Grave news emerges from OMSCo (via the Daily Telegraph) that the co-operative might have to dump up to 100,000 litres of organic milk because of the weather.

According to the Telegraph piece problems with collection, storage and delivery have combined to create the kind of perfect storm (my term, not theirs) that is a nightmare in the SLDP category.

The paper goes on to muse that such a move could lead to a shortage of organic milk and dairy products on store shelves in the short term. Whatever, it would be a very nasty blow to OMSCo. Fingers crossed they can get things moving – and soon…

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.

Some very uplifting news comes to us today from licensee, Jones Organic, makers of organic pasties and pies.

Jones Organic - Organic Steak & Vegetable Pastie

Business is good and the firm has now signed a lease to take on new premises which allows it to double its baking and refrigeration capacity.

While the business is proudly based in Bridgend, South Wales, increased demand from retailers in London and the south east has created the conditions for the bakery to ramp up its activities.

You can read all about the new move in the the words of Jones Organic themselves here: Jones Organic Press Release 21.10.09 [Adobe PDF file, 48k].

As well as supplying delis and organic stores around the country, the firm runs a very tempting mail order service which can be accessed through the website.

There’s some fascinating history to the company and its founder, Mike Sweetman, on there as well.

We wish everyone at Jones Organic every success with their expansion.

Interestingly, following on from the last post, a new Defra-backed report has emerged which suggests that shoppers have a perception of organic food and farming that is beyond the practical requirements of the regulations.

The study, carried out by the University of Exeter, reports an ‘expectations gap’ between the reality of production and processing and the knowledge and understanding of shoppers. Read the Farmers Guardian report here.

This is not entirely surprising and is the kind of communication failure that we all hope will be addressed by the OrganicUK initiative (see previous post).

Unfortunately, whenever we read something like this you can bet it will be spun quickly into a story about organics misleading consumers. Again, that’s probably our own fault as an industry for letting ourselves get into that position. Now is the time to take serious steps to address the problem. It’s a bit of a shame, though, that Defra will fund this kind of research, but doesn’t seem willing to find money for the OrganicUK bid to the EU to help us move on from the problem.

OrganicUK is an extremely important initiative to bring this country’s organic sector businesses together to properly communicate what organic stands for.

We've pledged - will you?

OF&G has been firmly behind the project from very early days, to the point where we were the first certifier to commit financially to the project.

Now we’re encouraging every organic-related business to get onboard and put their weight behind this crucial move to inform shoppers why they should buy organic.

We’ve very proud to be a backer, so today we’ve added the badge prominently on our website as a reminder to all to take a look and think carefully about what they can afford to put in.

If you haven’t already, please do take a look at the OrganicUK website. If we can pull off a great campaign, everyone will benefit.

Reports are appearing today of statistics coming out of retail analysts, IGD, which apparently show that a sizeable chunk of shoppers are sticking by organics – credit crunch or not.

Talking Retail rounds up the report here. It shows that 19 per cent (or roughly one in five) consumers are holding firm in their organic purchasing.

There are some other interesting facts and figures, but slightly concerning, though not surprising, is the one that suggests eight per cent of those questioned didn’t know what organic stood for anymore. It’s not surprising because realisation has finally dawned across the sector that we’re not getting clear messages out. Fortunately, there is work in hand to address this, such as the OrganicUK initiative being co-ordinated by Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, which OF&G is backing.

Overall though, mounting evidence, both empirical and anecdotal, points to organics going through a dip, rather than a crash.

The distance our food travels is important to many people. Some of it does silly trips up and down the country going from farm, manufacturer or packer to depots spread around the country and often back again to reach stores a few miles from where it started.

Some of it comes from all over the world; sometimes unavoidably, sometimes just because it can be hauled in cheaper from abroad.

Organic directory website, OrganicLinker.com, has now launched a food miles calculator to allow shoppers to do a quick check of the distance produce might have racked-up to reach them. The aim, according to site owner and food miles calculator developer, Mike Sharp, is to encourage more local sourcing of food, preferably direct from the producer.

Mike told us: “People often do not fully understand the impact on the environment of buying fruit and vegetables from abroad. By buying local, not only are you helping to cut down on carbon emissions, but you are also supporting your local economy and grower.”

Of course the argument isn’t simple. It’s entirely possible that a product grown in its natural climate and transported to the UK could use less carbon than an equivalent grown here in a heated poly tunnel. But the answer to that is to buy local and seasonal. But while we’re all wrestling with how far our food-buying consciences will let us go in changing our eating habits, you can at least take a quick peek at the miles involved and decide quite how guilty you should feel!