Is Organic Over?

A really interesting discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme today, engaged with what appears to be a perennial question these days, is the organic bubble about to burst? As presenter Sheila Dillon writes on her blog, ‘On paper it doesn’t look good: sales of organic food in supermarkets down by almost 6% in 2010, the average cost of a trolley of food up 4.7 per cent from March to April and a £780 drop in disposable incomes this year and next, and so it goes on… Evidence that recent positive changes to our food habits are being reversed.’ But is that the whole story?

I usually catch the Food Programme on BBC Radio 4 while I am preparing Sunday lunch. There is something both challenging, and at times satisfying about listening to others who share a passion for food and food production while one is cooking something that you yourself value. Some Sundays, like this one, a salad of mostly locally produced, organic leaves with a Somerset Brie, bulking up with a beautiful fresh bread from the baker around the corner from my home. But there are other Sundays when it’s mass produced cheddar cheese grilled onto pre-sliced, factory-made white bread with a side order of a crisp red apple from New Zealand, because it’s convenient, cheap and requires no great culinary skill to produce. And in a sense, in these two Sunday lunches, lies the tension at the heart of the Food Programme debate, which came from the Real Food Festival. What are we choosing to buy and eat and why?

In these austere times, there is genuine concern that what might appear to be just another luxury will succumb to simple economics, with consumers opting to purchase what supermarkets are good at providing, cheap food. And as consumers pull back from investing in quality, organic food, so to do the big suppliers on the high street. There is also the issue of a lack of skill and knowledge when it comes to food preparation. I myself recall my partner coming home one evening after we had just started getting an organic veg box delivered. There I was, kneeling on the living room floor, staring at mud-covered vegetables, some of which I had genuinely no idea what they were, or what I was supposed to do with them, and all I could say to her was, ‘The vegetables are stressing me out!’ For many, there is a genuine skills gap when it comes to cooking, and with busy lives it is all too easy to fall back on ready meals, or pasta smothered in a sauce that comes from a jar.

All the reasons above undermine our desire for quality, locally produced, organic food. However, while there is some evidence that the organic bubble has deflated somewhat, this episode of the Food Programme has story after story of food producers who have seen nothing but positive, year on year growth. It would seem that there has been a sustained change in attitudes towards what we eat and how it is produced.

Like many others, for our family, if the scales tip on one side then increasingly it is towards food which is fresh, organic, locally grown, independently retailed and ethically produced in terms of environment and labour. Not because we are part of the 1% of the population that haven’t felt the pressure of the economic downturn and so don’t have to worry about the money we spend. We are not poor, but we do live someway below the national average when it comes to household income. However, like the food programme suggests, for the vast majority, rich and poor alike, what we consume is a choice, and there is strong evidence that people across the social spectrum are choosing quality food over other choices. They are cutting back in all kinds of areas, but not when it comes to the food they are consuming. This was not a deep debate, but it was a fascinating insight into what appears to be a steady cultural shift towards a greater concern for what we consume when it comes to food. 

Your comments.