OF&G :: The Blog

Okay, must clarify the headline. No-one from here has actually been to the top of Everest. Maybe one or two have conquered The Wrekin or the Long Mynd and our Certification Manager, Steve, spends many a weekend tramping around very tall parts of the country – but I digress.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes conquers Everest with support from Science In Sport products, certified organic by OF&G

What is exciting is, as far as we know, for the first time an OF&G certified product has been to this highest of high places and in the hands of none other than adventurer extraordinaire, Sir Ranulph Feinnes!

Sir Ran sought advice and essential supplies from Science In Sport, which is a leader in sports nutrition, and has chosen OF&G as its certifier for a range of organic products. Among the SIS products Sir Ran took on his successful ascent, in May, were the organic ones (which he’s pictured holding).

This very British hero even went as far as to tell SIS that its energy formulations had “definitely powered me to the top” and he wished he’d had them with him on his previous attempts!

SIS really knows its stuff when it comes to sports nutrition and works with leading names in sport both nationally and internationally, including the heavily Olympic gold-medalled GB sailing and cycling teams, 2009 Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador, last year’s Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre, plus their very successful team mates, as well as leading athletes and teams in a whole cross-section of other sports.

OF&G is very pleased to provide certification services to SIS, who joined us on stand at the Natural and Organic Products Europe show, at Olympia, this year.

We’d like to pass our own congratulations on to Sir Ran for his achievement, which you can read about in more detail here.

Just a brief update to note that downloads of our Guide to Organic Certification: Food Processing stand at exactly 400 at the time of writing. That’s quite a neat milestone, don’t you think?

In addition to that we’ve sent copies of the printed (and satisfyingly heavyweight) version all over the UK and around the world. Did I mention that it’s free in both formats?

If you haven’t seen it yet take a look here…

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?

If we were being frank, we’d have to confess that when asked for a definition of organic food, any one of our team would be likely to get bogged down in explanations and caveats. We’re just too immersed in the inspection and licensing process that we have to remember to take a step back sometimes.

That’s why it was refreshing to stumble across an article by someone who has taken a fresh look at the topic and done a good precis of what organic certification means. It just so happens it’s in relation to cats and is on a site called pictures-of-cats.org. But that’s fine because we also certify pet food and this particular piece also contains a link to one of our licensees, Pero Petfood.

Well worth a read if you want background on the implications of organic certification – or you just like cats.