Consumer confusion prompts push for organic labelling clarity

© AgMedia Inc.

January 19, 2011

A U.S. effort to clarify organic labelling reflects consumers’ desire for improved food labelling system says Canadian Organic Growers spokesperson

by MELANIE EPP


Proposed changes to organic labelling standards in the United States reflect a growing consumer demand for a clear and standardized labelling system for all food products, says a spokesperson with the Canadian Organic Growers.

“I guess what we failed to understand was that as soon as a food label like organic becomes successful in the marketplace, you’re going to have hundreds of others jump on the bandwagon,” says Laura Telford, National Director of the Canadian Organic Growers in Ottawa.

And as consumers make their choices, keeping up can be an even bigger challenge for the farmer, she cautions.  “Eventually, those choices will trickle down to the farmer, because they’re the ones who have to grow things according to whatever claim is being made,” Telford says.


With so many labels making different claims, “consumers don’t know what types of decisions to make,” she says, calling the confusion grocery store paralysis. Consumers “may have it in their head that they want to shop ethically or they want to shop for healthy foods, but these various labels don’t make it easy for them to do that.”

The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program published adraft guidance concerning “made with organic” products last week. Guidance documents are developed through public participation and once finalized will represent the program’s current thinking on the issue. The final guidance will be included in a USDA handbook that provides interpretations of organic regulatory requirements and best business practices to organic certifying agents and certified operations.

The guidance asks for input on the use of non-organic ingredients in “made with organic” specified ingredients or food groups and the use of percentage statements under the “made with organic” labelling category. The goal is to clear misconceptions and provide consistency across the organic food industry. The comment period closes March 14.

Currently, in order to bear the USDA’s certified organic label, a product must contain at least 95 per cent organically produced ingredients. Products that contain 70-94 per cent organic ingredients cannot bear the certified organic logo but can use the “made with organic” claim. The guidance says the decision to address the labelling approach was prompted by questions and concerns that were raised by consumers.

Telford says, “Their challenges were issues in interpreting.” She doesn’t see the changes as having a great impact on Canada's organic labelling system, “because we haven’t had the same problem with consumers questioning our system.”

But if there are communication problems here, she suggests the U.S. proposed changes “can only help because now we can just point to the U.S. clarity and say it’s pretty much the same here.”

According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency website, Canadian organic product regulations, introduced by the federal government in 2009, permit products with 95 per cent or more organic content to make the organic claim or use the Canada organic logo. Products with less than 95 per cent organic content cannot make the claim or use the logo. However, products with between 70 and 95 per cent organic content can promote the percentage of their organic content and those with less than 70 per cent organic content can include organic claims in the product's ingredient list. The regulations do not permit Canadian processors to use “made with organic” claims.

“The intent of organic,” says Telford, “is to create a better kind of food system, but then you have to try and legislate that with words.” BF

My year in food

I just had to get one more blog in before the end of the year. My apologies to those of you who regularly look for blog posts from me and sometimes don't find them. Sometimes I'm too busy. Other times I simply don't have anything to say. Today, I thought it would be nice to sum up my year in food - it really has been an eventful one! (PS this WAS started before the new year, but I've had some serious problems with Blogger - they have all been sorted out now, at last).

The Garden

This year, since I live in the country, I thought I'd take local to a whole new level. Throughout the winter last year I carefully plotted and planned my garden, lest it be the disaster it was when I was a child. I purchased books that taught me organic pest control, deep bed methods and how to start plants indoors. Come spring, I had turned the bathroom into a virtual greenhouse. I made a few newbie mistakes, but generally speaking, everything worked out well. I planted too much, got overrun with weeds, underestimated the amount of work involved, and planted everything too close together. But, by harvest season I was still overwhelmed by the amount of food I had grown. What did I do with all that extra food? I canned and canned, made huge batches of soup and froze whatever I could. I must say, there is nothing like enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of your labour in the dead of winter. I learned a lot and regret nothing. It was worth every second.

Twitter

Twitter has done some interesting things for me, but most importantly, it has connected me with like-minded souls. There ARE, contrary to what some of my real life friends think, people out there just as interested in food as I am. I'm NOT alone! I have made a lot of new and interesting friends on Twitter and even joined them in Toronto for a potluck dinner (Meatluck 2). It was a fantastic experience! 

Media

There has been no shortage of media coverage this year. In August, I was contacted by a reporter from the Globe and Mail. She was profiling 4 people from across Canada (so-called global food drop-outs) and she had chosen me as one of them. You can read Way of the Locavore: Four ways to escape global food here. Shortly after that, I was asked by OMAFRA if I was interested in being in a short video that promoted eating locally. Of course, I said yes. You can watch the Foodland Ontario video here.

Somewhere around the same time, I received an email from Sarah Elton, author of Locavore: From farmers' fields to rooftop gardens - How Canadians are changing the way we eat. She was writing an article for the Globe and Mail on root cellars and was interested in learning more about the methods my family and I have used to preserve food. You can read The food storage secret our grandparents knew here.

Wellington County Rural Romp


This is the second year that Alex and I have gone on the Wellington County Rural Romp (hosted by Guelph Wellington Local Food ), but this year, along with the regular romping, they were also holding a photo contest. Alex and I don't really need an excuse to get out there with our cameras, so off we went to spend the day on a number of farms with our cameras. I submitted 7 photos and ended up winning the "farm category." You can view the photos here. Here's the one that won be some great stuff.



Hunting


This year saw one more major change in my life - my acceptance of hunting as a means of acquiring sustainable meat. Now, I must admit that I still haven't hunted myself, but I went bear hunting, duck hunting and goose hunting with my brothers. I also attended the Hunter Safety course in Toronto and studied for my Firearms Safety Certification. I'm very excited - I should be ready to join my brothers this fall.


What's in store for 2011?

Well, I hope to have another amazing garden experience this year. I will be applying all of the lessons I learned from mistakes made this year. For Christmas, my wonderful boyfriend gave me a pressure canner, so there's more to learn. Expect some blogs on pressure canning. You can expect more information to come out of things I've learned on Twitter. If you're thinking of joining Twitter my handle is @100milemel.Finally, once I have learned how to use my pressure canner, I plan to host a series of canning and preserving workshops in the Guelph area. For those of you who are moving toward a more local diet, preserving is an absolutely necessary skill - and fun!Anyway, who knows what 2011 will bring? Stick around and find out...

Way of the locavore: Four ways to escape global food

WENCY LEUNG


Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Nov. 26, 2010 6:19AM EST

Last updated Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010 11:58AM EST

Lesson 1: Be aware of your choices

Even if you can't afford to buy local, free-range and organic, and don't have the resources to grow your own, the first step is to simply be mindful of the consequences of your food choices, says Jes Goulet of Cobble Hill, B.C.

Ms. Goulet grows much of her own fruits and vegetables, raises hens for eggs and buys her other groceries from an organic delivery service. She recognizes not everyone has the time, yard space, inclination and ability to do the same.

But, she says, it starts with “sitting down and in your head evaluating, ‘Okay, these are the different sources for this particular food? Which one of these is ideal? Can I afford it?'… and trying to get the best you can with what you've got.”

That often requires making sacrifices. Ms. Goulet estimates she spends $200 a month on organic milk alone for her family of four, but has cut costs in other areas to keep her total grocery bills to about $400 a month. Even though it's less expensive to buy organic milk in plastic jugs, she's willing to pay more for the stuff that comes in glass bottles, since she prefers the taste and the bottles can be reused instead of recycled.

Ms. Goulet says she was raised on homegrown food, but since having children of her own, now aged 5 and 8, she's had a greater interest in where her food comes from.

“It no longer is about, ‘What am I putting in me?' ” she says. “I can make bad choices all I want, but I wanted them to have the best start.”

Lesson 2: Start small

If you were to analyze the lifecycle of every grocery item you bought, you'd be paralyzed whenever you went shopping, says Liz Gaige, the Vancouver resident behind the website LocalDelicious.com.

“You don't have to change your whole diet,” she says. “But if you just shifted 5 per cent of your grocery budget into eating more locally, eating more healthfully and … thinking about where your stuff's coming from, it has this huge impact.”

Ms. Gaige says she's always had an interest in “the artisan approach to stuff,” and has been buying her food at farmers markets long before it was popular to do so. She believes in supporting small, local businesses as a way of strengthening the local economy and building community ties.

But it doesn't matter what your motivations are for dropping out, she says; every step has greater consequences. If you start buying organic meat, for instance, simply because you want a better-tasting option, that decision may also be better for the environment and more humane, she says. And once you start examining one aspect of your food, it becomes natural to scrutinize other parts of your diet. For example, if you consider buying organic, free-range eggs, you may soon find yourself buying organic, free-range chicken and other meats too.

“I never expected to be like a tree-hugger, but I kind of am just because of these small, incremental steps that I take,” Ms. Gaige says, noting that she grows some vegetables in her yard, and buys non-medicated meat and organic produce.

“I'm not going to agonize and spend my life freaking out about every food decision, but it's about, on a greater consciousness, ‘Okay, what am I trying to accomplish here?' ”

Lesson 3: Plan how you'll feed yourself over the long term

When food doesn't come in packages and isn't shipped from other parts of the world, it isn't fast. But with some planning, it's possible to eat local, organic and ethically raised food year-round, says freelance writer Melanie Epp of Guelph, Ont., who writes the blog 100 Mile Mel, Amateur Locavore.

To eat more healthfully, she began buying locally grown fruits and vegetables about two years ago, after reading that imported produce is less nutritious when it's picked before its prime.

But Ms. Epp admits her path to healthier eating has taken some trial and error. Once, she says, she and her partner drove 30 kilometres to a farm to buy local berries, only to discover they had been sprayed with chemical pesticides. Not only did ingesting pesticides conflict with her intentions, she says, “we were like the carbon Bigfoot because we were driving 30 kilometres to get berries that we could pick up at the grocery store.”

A much smarter idea, she says, was to plan out how much food she required over a longer term. She found a nearby farm that raises cows, chickens and pigs ethically, where she buys a family-sized package of meat that lasts her most of the year. She also grows all kinds of organic produce in her garden, which she preserves by canning and freezing. She freezes big batches of homegrown vegetable soup in yogurt containers for quick and easy meals throughout the winter.

Sure, growing and carefully sourcing your food takes time, she says. “But you have time for things that matter.”

Lesson 4: Collaborate with others

Whether you're gardening, harvesting or preserving your own food, it's more efficient – and more fun – to do it with friends, says Lorraine Johnson, Toronto author of City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing, who has farmed multiple gardens around her city.

If you don't have much outdoor space of your own, you could join a community garden or collaborate with friends and neighbours who do, she says. Participating in shared fruit picking, and holding canning and pickling parties, also make feeding yourself a social affair and helps distribute the cost and workload, she says.

“On every score, it makes so much sense. You run into a problem? You have five heads figuring it out. You're lugging around a bushel of tomatoes? Your friends can help carry.”

For Ms. Johnson, becoming a global food dropout was initially a matter of seeking flavour. But over the years, she's also developed a distaste for conventional food production practices, and is especially concerned about the mistreatment of livestock.

Ms. Johnson emphasizes, however, it's important to recognize it's a luxury to be able to refuse to eat certain foods.

“The system itself has to be changed,” she says, “so that everyone is able to make those choices.”