The popularity of Organic food is on the rise internationally, with major food companies such as Tesco, M & S, Roma and Heinze increasingly their production of 'Organic' foods. However, there are good reasons to keep on supporting the origional leaders of the movement such as Whole Earth, Biona, Suma and Meridian (to name but a few), and also to put more effort into finding food that has been grown or produced locally.

The origional Organic companies were set up when Organic was the province of hippies and New Age radicals, not the fashion of the day as it is today. Many of the early companies have extensive environmental schemes, and also are basing their receipes on 'wholefoods' rather than refined more 'popular' foods. For example, rather than producing an Organic tomato ketchup which tastes exactly like the conventional one but is made with Organic white sugar instead of normal white sugar, Whole Earth formulated a ketchup that is sweetened with fruit juices and tastes of tomatoes not of pure sugar!

A recent article by Alex Renton in this Sunday's Observer (October 1 2006) asked interesting and difficult questions about where our organic food is flown in from and what is happening to the industry now that Supermarkets have decided that Organic is the future. With the demand for organically grown produce growing but the area of land under organic production falling in the U.K. (it fell by 8% last year) more and more organic food is being imported to Ireland and the U.K., which results in higher prices, increased pollution from increased 'food miles' and poorer quality food because it has been picked and stored.

Renton argues that 'local' is going to be the new 'organic'. This, in my opinion, is a challenge to all of us in this industry. Sourcing local organic food is often time consuming, unreliable and expensive, because initially at least you are dealing with a very small producer who is struggling to meet the Organic Certification requirements.

We are waiting too for the Governments of both the U.K. and Ireland to catch up with the trend and start to meaningfully encourage locally produced Organic food. Structured subsidies for small frmers so that if a crop fails (as the organic potato crop did last year) the farmers are not left completely high and dry. Right now this seems like a pipe dream but lets keep on hoping!