Has organic food gone mainstream?

Pablo is CEO of NZ owned and operated, Chantal Organics. Chantal Organics started as a family run food co-op over 40 years ago in 1978 when a group of families came together to buy natural wholefoods in bulk. This eventually turned into a shop and today, Chantal Organics is a nationwide manufacturer and wholesaler, distributing organic products into grocery and health food stores around the country from their facility in Hawke’s Bay.Supermarkets today are stocking a growing range of organic products and it feels like as a population we are getting more curious about where our food comes from. However, as Pablo says, “We have a really long way to go and part of the challenge will be address through education. Education about what organic farming is and education about what actually is in the food we eat”.On this episode we talk about:Has the landscape for organic food in NZ changed?How organic is the organic food we are eating?Why is organic food so expensive? What can we do to make it more accessible?Perfectly formed fruits and vegetables come at a price and drives up the cost of organic produceHow does eating organic food help save our land and water Learn more about Chantal Organics product range or explore their recipes on www.chantalorganics.co.nz Quotes from the episode:“People start to become hyper aware of what they are eating when they get sick. More and more people are thinking I don’t want to get to that stage and so we start thinking about what we are putting into our bodies.”“When I think back to why Chantal Organics was setup, it was setup as a co-op to make it affordable for families to be able to buy organic products.”“Children today are not aware of where food comes from. Where does a carrot come from for example? When we are growing produce at home, even if it’s just chilies and herbs, our kids can go outside and pick the fruits and vegetables and understand the work it took to grow the food we eat. The food we grow in our gardens also just naturally happens to be organic as we don’t really spray it with chemicals.”