The theme of the campaign was small changes, big difference. It aimed to encourage people to make one small change to their shopping habits, such as switch to organic milk, eggs or apples.
“For example, if 20 families switched to organic milk, another cow will be free to range on clover rich organic pastures,” said the Soil Association is a statement.
“It might not seem like these simple changes could make that much difference – but together, everyone’s small changes can add up to a really big difference for a kinder, green and better food and farming system,” said Helen Browning, Soil Association chief executive.
Following the 2013 campaign the sales of organic foods saw increase by 9% during September and the Soil Association was convinced the results would be even better in 2014.
“The campaign has been running for more than 10 years. It started as an ‘organic fortnight’ and three years ago it was extended to a month in order to give the companies more time to prepare their campaigns,” said Finn Cottle, trade consultant for the Soil Association.
“Each year we take specific objectives for the campaign and this year we are looking for an increase of at least 10%,” Cottle told Food Navigator.
Nutritional and sustainable:
Despite an ongoing debate on whether there were significant nutritional differences between non-organic and organic foods, the Cottle said that the recent research and coverage of organic food has been very positive over the last few weeks, and has given the industry a real boost.
She wasn’t concerned about the growing debate on the sustainability of organic foods either.
“Less than 2% of the overall grocery market is organic. We are gradually and steadily educating people on what organic is all about. We are not expecting to go from less than 2% to 100%.
We have the products available and what we want now is more support to make it popular. There is no question about the sustainability at the moment and there is no risk to it in the near future,” Cottle said.