OF&G :: The Blog

Interesting debate may be on the cards following the publication by the journal Food Policy (via FoodNavigator.com) of research into whether the public would accept food labelled as being “in-conversion” to organic.

It’s easy to see people coming down firmly on each side of the fence on this issue. We’d be fascinated to hear your comments below.

On one hand an “in-conversion” label would give producers who are on the road to full status the chance to possibly recoup some level of premium price for their efforts. On the other hand, would we risk confusing shoppers if we haven’t yet done a good enough job of explaining the reasons why they should be buying certified organic produce?

So finally details are emerging of the long-promised competition for students to design what will be the new, mandatory, EU-wide organic logo.

You may recall that they had one of these last year – until someone noticed it looked too much like the Aldi trademarked organic logo. Whoops. So, back to the drawing board. Literally.

Technically, whatever the new logo is going to look like, it comes into force from July 2010, so they need to crack on with this. There’s a sparkly new website announcing the competition – although no-one can register yet, which seems like a huge missed opportunity. How many visitors to the site will remember to return later???

Anyway, if you know of a keen art/design/media student who would like to be able to walk around for the next few years saying “I did that” whenever they see packaging with the EU organic logo on, let them know – but only if they’re any good; we’ve all got to live with this!

[UPDATE: Our never-to-be-fobbed-off Development Officer, Steven, contacted those running the competition to find out when people might actually be able to register. The answer was a kind of vague "next week". Great to see the usual levels of efficiency our European contributions are funding. That's all.]

Organic Farmers & Growers is very pleased to be unveiling its new Guide to Organic Certification for food processing.

This has been a long-time in the making as our processor certification team refined and refined it to ensure it was going to be as useful and practical a publication as possible.

The guide spells out all of the stages of gaining organic certification in food processing and should answer most, if not all, of the obvious questions that anyone would have before going into the sector. It would also prove a useful reference for companies that have to regularly train new staff in this field.

It’s definitely a quality product (the printed versions would stand up very nicely to be lugged around production facilities), but is also available as a free download from our website.

As well as describing the stages of the certification process there are examples of all the relevant forms, so applicants can see at-a-glance how to complete them. It really should remove a lot of guesswork.

Congratulations to processor CO’s Ruth and Joanna, Development Officer, Steve, and Office Manager, Angela, for pulling this together.

A few of us have been chuckling our way around the office having seen this:

“Beware of misleading labels implying “freedom”; only the Soil Association accreditation offers any real guarantee of a decent standard of animal care.”
George Miller and Katharine Reeve,authors of the new Rough Guide to Food, The Times, 3 March 2009

Where on earth does a statement like that come from?

Let’s start with the fact that according to our own close analysis, the difference between Organic Farmers & Growers standards and the Soil Assocation Certification Ltd standards boils down to a very few variations in requirements, particularly with regard to livestock. Of those variations none of them could be called substantial and in an argument over whether our version or the SACL version is “better” for welfare, you might as well be debating whether the chicken or the egg came first, because your chances of reaching a consensus are about as good!

Secondly, quite what do the authors mean by “decent”? In organics, and with the OF&G standard, we shoot for “excellent”. Who wants “decent”?

Are they implying the SACL standard is only “decent” and not excellent???

We certainly have no desire to denigrate Soil Association Certification’s standards, but if the authors wanted to give such a piece of advice to their readership, perhaps it would have shown them to be better informed if they had substituted the words “Soil Assocation accreditation” for “organic accreditation”.

The SA, however, seem to be very pleased with the recommendation – we found that snippet in their daily news digest.

We’ve been a bit peeved with The Times newspaper around here lately. It was this particular newspaper that, at Christmas, published a dubious and un-checked story claiming that organic farmers had asked for a “holiday” from the organic standards, or to “bend the rules”.

We shouted loudly at the time that this was not the case and explained the truth of the matter. It’s fair to say the smoke was caused by fire in this case, but the signals were badly distorted.

Now (admittedly a bit belatedly and in a circuitous way via Twitter) we’ve stumbled across this blog post by Rachel Johnson, also in The Times.

Beginning reading it gives you the sense that it’s just going to be another commentator expressing their disappointment, based on not knowing all the facts. However, if you keep reading you realise that Ms Johnson is injecting a dose of the kind of realistic common sense that we sometimes think we must have the monopoly on here at OF&G towers (trust me, we know we don’t have that monopoly, but occasionally it feels like it!).

For instance, she says:

“Look at it this way: a new row over organic certification should actually help suspicious consumers better to understand the difference between those who slave year-round to produce good food without damaging the environment and the wily producers who hijack the word (as they did “green”) to try to sell us some pretty borderline or questionable tat.”

So, yes. Education of consumers. Something we’re always desperate to achieve, because when people really understand what organic means and stands for they will know why they should support it.

Also:

“The current debate is a sign of how well regulated and passionate the sector has become. Of course, everyone understands that in a recession people are going to want cheaper food: that’s why the organic lobby has acknowledged that conventional methods have their place.”

While that’s an excellent point, and we’re thrilled to see the recognition that this is a very well policed system, we’re not convinced that all of the ‘organic lobby’ has acknowledged the place of non-organic farming. We have, and we know others who have. But no, not everyone.

All-in-all a very well-balanced, thoughtful and, above all, realistic piece. Thank you, Ms Johnson.

With reference to the last posting, here’s what appears to be link to the new regulation (beware, it’s a 10MB+ Adobe PDF document).

When I say ‘appears to be’, it’s the best I can find on the bizarre and misleading cludge that passes as the EU’s online offering. My more knowledgeable colleagues are at a conference today and will put me straight when they get back, if necessary. But this is a starter for ten.

If you can be bothered to wade through it (don’t worry if you can’t, that’s our job) the key advice would be DON’T PANIC if you find anything that concerns you. Just pick up the phone to your Certification Officer, whoever your cert body is, and ask for the correct details.