News and Reviews

We are delighted to announce that we won ‘Best E-Commerce/Service website 2010’ at the Irish Web Awards on Saturday. The event took place at the Mansion House, Dublin and with over 550 people in attendance it sure was exciting.  Over 500 websites were nominated for the event and the results were selected by over 140 judges, we are very humbled to have won and it is a great honour.

Thank you so much to every person who is part of our little project of bringing good food back to Ireland…to the customers, staff , producers  and our crazy design team that is The Creative District, thank you all!

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We are delighted to announce that our website has been shortlisted for two prestigious awards at the 2010 Irish Web Awards.  Last year we where humbled that our young company scooped the “Most Beautiful Website in Ireland 2009” awards.

This year we are all grown up and mature and have been shortlisted for “Best eCommerce / Services Website” and for “Best SME/Small Business Website”.  We have got some really worthy competition whom we wish the best too.

Last year’s Irish Web Award ceremony was the most fun event we have ever attended, we are excited, delighted and looking forward to the Chipsticks on the night!  Thank you all for your continuing support.

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This is the second part of a two part blog from Dr Oliver Moore – please feel free to comment

Click here for part one

The time and the space to shop around:

It is also the case that with the recession people are shopping around more. People now really want good value. But remember, value is about price and quality combined – its not just price.

Sometimes only one family member is earning due to unemployment, so shopping around, back garden growing, allotmenteering and so on all become more possible.

Here’s the silver lining: this opens up the opportunity to access good basic wholesome organic ingredients from a variety of shopping outlets: discounters, farmers’ markets, specialty shops and supermarkets.

All offer organic now, some offer organic with many brilliant socio-cultural and environmental bells and whistles, others only offer basic organic, but in general the recession has opened up and allowed for shopping around in a way that was far less possible during the boom.

With necessity comes ingenuity – who knows, you could even end up with a stall at a local farmers’ market selling your own organic produce in a couple of years.

Nature doesn’t have a voice: you do

Research cited by Teagasc in November 2008[i] suggested that in every significant area, organic scored better than conventional in terms of environment. They used six overall categories, and three sub categories within these. There was not one of these 18 areas where conventional scored better. Not one. So for biodiversity, climate change,  pollution – you name it – organic scores better.

But guess what? Nature can’t vote. Nature can’t speak.  Each year, countless millions of ‘non-target’ flora and fauna, and tens of thousands of third world farm labourers, die from the side effects of conventional farming[ii]. These are hidden voices. But by buying organic, you are taking the first steps towards softening the incredibly heavy carrying capacity of the western diet.

Organic is also future proofed farming: with oil running out and with climate change, by investing in organic farms, you are investing in the farming of the future. Plants, including grasses, on organic farms are both more abundant but also deeper rooting – they have to be deeper rooting as they are seeking nutrients, rather than having them applied to the surface. This makes the farms less likely to flood, and more all round resilient. Likewise with the plant diversity; animals need a varied diet, and a complex grass sward for cattle to munch on gives them a suitably balanced diet.

Organic farms are also less fuel dependent, as synthetic fertilizers, in their construction and transportation, are copious users of fossil fuels[iii]. Organic farms also sequester (lock away and make safe) carbon[iv]. By investing in organic, when times are most tough, you are investing in an infrastructure that can cope with peak oil and climate change.

As it happens, this recession is coinciding with these other massive realities; climate change and peak oil. Investing in organic, by choosing organic foods, is an investment in future proofing the agri-food system.

Of course long distance transportation of highly processed organic foods is a problem: on the one hand, organic should offer an alternative to all conventional food, even the globalised and processed. That way, there is always an alternative. That way, you build a genuine alternative to all areas in the agri food system. However ,you don’t have to buy the far flung and ready made organic: it is possible to can minimise here too. In other words, organic can be part of your ever improving food story, along with elements like local, fair and slow.

What does it all mean?

Things are tough now, so refocusing, and reprioritizing are the order of the day. That does not necessarily exclude organic, it just means thinking a little differently about what organic means and how it might fit in.

Organic might be part of a general move towards growing a bit more, baking a bit more, cooking a bit more and wasting a lot less. Plus, it is possible to source organic seeds and organic ingredients for these new culinary endavours. Organic might fit in a more savvy shop around – whether through necessity or desire, organic bargains can be found with a little effort.

In the final analysis organic is about a core life defining and life affirming question: how should we feed ourselves and our families? Its about how we spend our money. Its about knowing what our responsibilities are, in light of knowing the objective truth about government spending patterns, climate change and environmental destruction more generally.

So, what are you going to do?

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[i] Kasperczyk, N and Knickel, K. (2006). Environmental Impacts of Organic Farming. In: Organic Agriculture: A Global Perspective. 259 – 294

[ii] See: http://library.fws.gov/Pubs/mbd_pesticides-3-00.pdf accessed at 11.15am on 13/09/10

[iii] See: http://www.organicmattersmag.com/features/276-adapting-the-weapons-of-war accessed at 11.16am on 13/09/10

[iv] See http://olivermoore.blogspot.com/2009/12/radical-rupture-or-radical-realisation.html accessed at 11.18am on 13/09/10

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This is the first part of a two part blog from Dr Oliver Moore

Nature is in the firing line

The simple and sad truth is that all the good stuff gets cut in a recession. Longer term and more environmentally focused initiatives tend to loose out in bleak economic times. One the one hand, recession has some positives for the environment, as consumption goes down: less cars on the road, less petrol used, less highly processed supra convenient goods. Instead of these frilly extras, people do refocus on the bare essentials. So discretionary spending disappears, and the focus sharpens onto the absolute necessities.

The recent decline in Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions has pretty much paralleled the decline in the economy, which speaks volumes in itself about the difference between rhetoric and action.

While all kinds of efficiencies can often be introduced into various sectors, many of the cutbacks suggested in the likes of the McCarthy report read like an economistic destruction of the core tenants of society.

The epic grandeur of the contradictions between bank bailouts and squeezes on the sick, the poor the old and the environment is seismic and horrific in equal measure.

In this sort of context, with less money in the pot, you can be sure that  nature will be first in the firing line. So, it falls back onto us, as environmentally aware citizens, to invest our money in farming methods that produce food in a more environmentally benign manner.

Buying organic food is a simple and effective way to, literally, put your money where your mouth is.

Focus on the essentials

By actually putting your money where your mouth is, you can also put it into what’s important; good quality, healthy food which helps rather than hinders the environment. It is possible to do without so many of the things that seemed essential – weekend breaks, ready meals, never ending  upgrades – and to refocus  on the food: on doing it more from scratch, on making sure the food that you eat ticks all the right boxes.

There are often ways to keep buying organic by changing other food practices: why not start making bread with organic flour, or growing some basic herbs on the windowsill, or getting an allotment, or making your own soup with organic veg and your own stock?

Reducing waste, the kind that comes from ‘buy 3 for the price of 2′ is a great start: 1/3 of all food purchased is wasted, including almost half of all salad leaves. How about dropping the inert gases and big puffed out bag of salad leaves in the supermarket, and go to the organic veg stall at a farmers’ market, pick and mix your own proper proportion of salad leaves, and eat them over the next couple of days instead?

By taking control of food back, by limiting the amount of processing, packaging and value adding that’s done elsewhere in the food system, you can save money, improve ingredients and spend more time in the home with the ones you love making beautiful food. And what’s not to smile about with that?

We are all feeling the effects of the recession, but its important not to let it dominate your thoughts and actions. In fact, when times are good, we’re told not to rock the boat, and when times are tough we’re told to tighten our belts. So the environment is a hindrance to progress (read: rezoning and environmental destruction more generally) during the boom, and the second the boom is over, we can’t afford to think about the environment!

In reality, during the boom the government never spent enough on the good stuff anyway. As stated already – Ireland waxed lyrical about the environment and massively increased green house gas emissions in parallel with economic growth. Simply put; there was never a ‘good time’ to invest in nature, according to economistic dogma.

Organic is great value for money

In a range of important areas, organic means a guarantee of a higher standard. This can be especially clear when it comes to pigs an poultry. The housing standards on Irish poultry farms are far better on organic holdings, in animal welfare terms, than on conventional units.

Indeed, because of upcoming EU directives on animal welfare, conventional pig and poultry units will have to change their housing regimes to comply[i]. So on the one hand, that’s good news as animal suffering will decline. However, the government is investing tens of millions by way of grants for conventional pig and poultry (both meat and egg) producers, to help them comply.

This can in fact be seen as a massive tax payer subsidy which has the effect of artificially maintaining the price differential between organic and conventional. The organic producers who had the higher animal welfare standards all along, who were compliant, did not get millions to upscale: instead, the ones with the lower animal welfare standards are getting free money to improve. This is a backwards logic, and one that makes organic look expensive. Why not support the good guys, the ones with the higher standards, rather than reward those who profiteered whilst boxing chickens  into an area the size of an a4 sheet of paper?

Likewise, the pork dioxin scandal cost both jobs and the taxpayer. The contingency fund alone cost E180 million in December 2008[ii]. Organic pigs could not by law have been fed that particular contaminated food, and yet all organic pigs were slaughtered, supposedly to ‘maintain consumer confidence’. So we pay the costs in tax, and then find cheap conventional sausages on  supermarket shelves. How cheap is a multi million euro million subsidy?

The same goes for the clean up operations of various others areas in the agri-food system, including  from pesticides and fertilizers.

What does all of this have to do with buying organic? Well, its simple: if you buy organic, you are buying into best environmental and food safety practice. You are using your money in a far more constructive way than many of the institutional players. You are being a globally aware environmental citizen, working like and with millions of others, on re-balancing power in the agri-food system.

Continued here…

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[i] See: http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/press/pressreleases/2010/june/title,44143,en.html

accessed at 11.00am on 13/09/10

[ii] See http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Fund-enables-pork-producers-to-get-back-to-work accessed at 11.12am on 13/09/10

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Organic idea is bearing fruit

The Organic Supermarket, which set up just as the recession began, shows that good business ideas can work even in a downturn, writes Dermot Corrigan.

Establishing a new business on the cusp of a global recession may seem foolhardy but for Darren Grant, founder of the Organic Supermarket, doing just that has proven a fruitful endeavour.

When Great established the Organic Supermarket in July 2008, Ireland’s economic fortunes were on the wane.  Rather than walk away, however, he took a good look at the marketplace and decided that changing consumer trends wood feed, rather than destroy, his new venture.

“With all the talk of recession around, people started to go back to basics,” Grand said.  “There were a lot of cooking programmes on TV with things like how to make an Irish stew.  There was a return to buying food, instead of buying pre-packaged meals for €6 or €7 apiece, so it was a good time to set up.”

“I loved food and felt that food retail in Ireland had become homogenised with a few general stores taking over everything.  I did some research and found that there was no 100 per cent dedicated supermarket in Ireland.  We decided there was a viable business there.”

The Organic Supermarket

Located in Blackrock, the Organic Supermarket sells a broad range of organic products, from fruit, vegetables, wines, cheeses and breads right through to cosmetics and body care products.

“I did a lot of background work with suppliers to find out whether I would be able to have an organic version of everything you get in a normal supermarket and now we stock over 3000 products in the store,” said Grant.

Although armed with eight years’ experience as a senior manager with computer-maker Dell, setting out alone was still a risky move for Grant.

“I gave up the safety and security of working for a multinational with a guaranteed salary,” he said.  “I went from being a specialist within a multinational to having to run everything myself.  I suddenly became the head of accounts as well as the head of PR.  It was a challenge, but I really enjoyed the change.”

At the time, Grant secured assistance from the First-Step Microfinance programme and Dun  Laoghaire-Rathdown Country Enterprise Board.

“I received an unsecured €20,000 loan at a very reasonable interest rate from First Step.  They have been an absolute pleasure to deal with, and I would recommend anyone starting off  to contact them,” he said.  “I also did a recruitment course and entered a mentoring programme with the local enterprise board.”

Managing Cashflow

Grant staid that he quickly learned about the financial realities of running a small business.

“Managing cashflow was one of the major challenges at first,” he said.  “You have to plan so far in advance and really need to have six weeks’ cashflow in your mind at all stages.  Dealing with tax affairs and other financial bits and pieces was also new to me”

Grant believes that more government support is needed to help SMEs to create new jobs in a tough economy.

“There are not sufficient structures in place to encourage people like me to hire new staff,” he said. “The Government could introduce a PRSI holiday for the first 12 months, or allow the individual to keep their job-seekers allowance for the first six months in a new job.  With new SME’s profitability is not instant, so some nurturing of the start-up phase of a business would be really useful.”

Grant will take part in a public panel discussion entitled ‘Thing Big, Start Small, Move Quickly” at the Small Firms Association’s Annual Conference, which takes place in Dublin Castle on Thursday.  He believes that larger companies tend to grab the headlines when it comes to job creation.

“There does not seem to be the same support structure there for entrepreneurs who are prepared to try and establish an SME,” he said.

“If you fail, you are not even entitled to jobseeker’s allowance yourself.”

The Organic Supermarket employs seven people, with Grant prioritising recruitment of candidates who are a good fit for the business.

“Getting the right staff on board was absolutely critical for me,” he said.  “During our research, we found that good service was really lacking in the convenience store experience.  It was just a case of ‘next, next, next’. Two years in, we still have the majority of our original staff here, which is nearly unheard of in retail”

Grant belives that consumers who buy irish can make all the difference to small business in Ireland.  “You night go to a discount retailer, but also give some business to a local independent business,” he said.  “I see a change in people’s attitude recently.  I feel very positive about the coming year.”

Natural Progression for an Organic Supermarket

Darren Grant, founder of the Organic Supermarket, said his decision early last year, to launch the online store www.organicsupermarket.ie , had been crucial to the business’s survival.

“We realised at the beginning of 2009 that it was sink or swim,” Grant said.  “Our sales figures were not hitting the targets projected in the business plan.  We wanted to keep our overheads the same, while expanding our market reach, so the web was the next logical step.  We decided to go for it and invested the last of our capital in the website.”

Grant said that the site, which was developed in association with digital media agency the Creative District, was designed to stand out from the crowd.

“We did not want to have just another version of  a supermarket online shopping experience,” he said.  “We wanted a very visual, funky site which would get our wholesome message across.”

“By keeping the content fresh and vibrant, with things like recipes and new product news, we make super people return to the site and keep our Google ranking up.”

“We also invite guest bloggers such as celebrity chef Rozanne Stephen and nutrition expert Dr Oliver Moore.  Its all about building a brand and not just forcibly selling stuff.”

Organicsupermarket.ie was named Best Retail and Commercial Shopping website at the 2009 Golden Spider Awards and Most Beautiful Website in Ireland at the Irish Web Awards 2009.

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