Ängavallen: Making a case for kindness
Ängavallen Farm in southern Sweden, 20km south of Malmö, has been a model for a kinder and more ecological way of farming for nearly...
Starting where the people are
In her foreword to the Soil Association's new strategy paper The Road to 2020, the organic charity’s new director, Helen Browning, writes:
“Over the last...
Confessions of an organic vegetarian
Meat Free Monday (and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and…)
There is nothing more illogical than an organic vegetarian, but that is what...
Setting a course for the future of organic
Over the past few months the Soil Association’s new director, Helen Browning, has been consulting widely on how best to take both the organisation...
Legal, decent, thruthful and honest? Oh, come off it!
Major airlines and detergent brands runs rings round the ASA while the small guys get hauled up on pedantic points of detail, writes Craig...
Sweet spot
Last week I visited the brand new £225 million Pembury Hospital, just outside Tunbridge Wells. It's a genuinely state of the art building, and...
Guest blog: Amarjit Sahota from Organic Monitor
Leading natural beauty brands are taking their products worldwide in search of future growth, writes Amarjit Sahota, president of Organic Monitor. But where are...
Artisan, my a***
Two thoughts came to mind when I was casting around for something to write about this week.
Thought 1. I’ve just got back from a...
There’s only one option with nuclear. Get rid of it.
Nuclear power threatens everything that all living plants and creatures have struggled for since the miracle of life began, writes Craig Sams.
I had a...
Beware of cluttered thinking on store layout!
I’m not sure which consumer behavior experts were being referenced in your May editorial who concluded that “the messier and more confusing a shop...
It’s the system, Mary
So, Mary Portas, Queen of Shops, has been drafted in by Coalition ministers to lead an independent review into the state of British retailing.
Straightaway...
Can technology be the making of community retailing?
Several health store owners I spoke with at last month’s Natural & Organic Products Europe told me that footfall had been significantly down over...
Could your store do with a spot of re-cluttering?
Two or three years ago (just like their UK counterparts) America's biggest retailers started slimming down their inventories and clearing aisles for a cleaner,...
So, where are all the bodies?
A new 200-page report from the American Association of Poison Control Centers concludes that nutritional supplements were the cause of zero deaths in the US...
Prepare for the organic surge!
How many scientists does it take to change a climate sceptic’s mind? No, not a joke, a question posed by New Scientist last week.
The...
Why real change is best served up on a plate
At the back end of last year the former director of the Soil Association, Patrick Holden, undertook a coast to coast tour of the...
A precautionary tale
Environmental campaigners have for decades argued in favour of the ‘precautionary principle’. When the possible consequences of something are simply too serious to risk...
Yours awesomely,
“Wow, your blog is awesome. I literally just stumbled across it, but now I’m going to tell all my friends about it!”....“What a great...
Organic naysayers at it again
This week we’ve seen a few news outlets grabbing eagerly onto another story knocking organic farms.
The two highlights of this story, based on research...
Anti-organic, moi?
I felt almost nostalgic seeing John Krebs having a go at organic on last week’s IQ2US debate in New York (see story). It was...