Big Business Blues
by Ysanne Spevack
A lady from the telly called today. She was researching a programme due to be broadcast in the Autumn. The programme will apparently investigate box schemes who swindle their customers by selling them conventionally grown fruit and veg and claim that it is organic so that they can charge lots of money. The lady from the telly was calling me to see if I could give her any information about unscrupulous box schemes such as the one she described.
I was gobsmacked. For possibly the first time in my life (my teacher in primary school nick-named me Chatterbox!!) I was left speechless. I finally came to my senses and let her know what I thought in no uncertain terms: namely that the programme which she was researching is based on absolutely nothing.
I have been in and around the organic industry for many years, and I have never come across a single box scheme that sells counterfeit veg. I have noticed quality and freshness of produce vary, price and variety of fruits waver, taste and juiciness fluctuate, but never a non-organic banana passing off as a bonafide organic one. Not in a box scheme. Never.
Box schemes are by their very nature run by people genuinely committed to purveying the real mccoy. Box schemes are a lot of hard work to run. From getting a strong customer base to finding reliable delivery people, box schemes are far from the easiest kind of business to run. Selecting fine produce, keeping types of veg varied even during the ‘hungry gap’, finding knowledgable people to answer customers calls… And lots of them are not even businesses as such, but are in fact cooperatives.
Making a box scheme work is a labour of love. The only reason in the whole wide world to bother with the palava of running a box scheme is if you are genuinely committed to organic food and farming. If anybody ever had the idea that running a box scheme is an easy route to a quick buck, I’m happy to inform them that they should consider another profession. Box schemes are tricky.
The lady from the telly went a bit quiet and then asked me if I knew of any other rip-offs in the organic world. She wanted to know if I had come across other instances of people selling fake organic items in order to demand a higher premium, i.e. more cash.
This area of concern I think has a little more breadth for truth. The most huge and obvious non-organic pretender in the UK market has to be Organics shampoo and conditioners. Made by the Elida brand name, Organics haircare products are the ones in the green plastic bottles in your supermarket, and they are the market leader. This means that they sell more shampoo and conditioner than any other brand name in the UK. Lots of product.
My guess is that a good precentage of Organics shampoo customers buy this brand because they believe that the product inside the reassuringly green bottles is, in fact, organic. It is not. Not even slightly. Organics shampoo contains a blend of petrochemical compounds, synthetic fragrances and dyes, a particularly dodgy chemical called sodium laurel sulphate and lots of other goo. It does not contain any organic herbs, organic water, or anything else remotely organic. In a recent survey of consumers, 75% of the 2000 people questioned said that they used an organic personal care product on a daily basis. They must have been referring to Elida’s Organics range, and had obviously been misled to believe that their product was organic.
Charlotte Vohtz is the founder of Green People, a company that makes authentic organic personal care products. Their range includes hair and body care, skin care, toothpastes and mouthwashes, ‘happy kids range’, herbal supplements, sun care and home cleaning products. Charlotte believes passionately about the importance of setting standards so that consumers are not misled.
I think the result of the survey speaks for itself! The poor consumer is misled into believing they are using organic products, and probably believe they are being kind to themselves and the environment.
We need to set standards for non-food organic products to ensure use of this word can be protected. Consumers can then look for a symbol like the Soil Association symbol, and know that the ingredients listed as organic truly are organic. The Soil Association are working on new guidelines for personal care products at this very moment. They will hopefully have them finalised by the end of this year.
Until these guidelines have been set, consumers are encouraged to be extremely careful when buying non-food products which claim to be organic. I recommend using ones made by smaller companies who list their ingredients clearly. Products that are sold as ‘natural’, in plainer packaging, or in health food shops are not automatically organic, and often contain an unpleasant chemical called sodium lauryl sulphate. And we will not be able to feel totally confident with products labelled organic until there is a similar legal position towards non-food products as there is for foods. Throughout the European Union, you can be taken to court for a criminal offence if you label a non-organic food as organic. There is a very serious case for making these standards applicable for non-food products.
The Soil Association will be presenting their guidelines to UKROFS and hope that they will be taken on board. Providing they have evidence that it can be implemented, any responsible Government should adopt this policy to prevent customers from being cheated and give them the reassurance that