Oliver Moore: Organic directory set to boost sales
This website — www.organicfoodsales.ie — will be a directory with the contact information of those selling organic food.
IFOGA has informed this columnist: “Companies register on the site and complete a company profile, detailing contact details etc, and they then have the facility to register up to 10 organic products and upload images, product information and so on. Companies can also list distribution outlets.”
And they add: “The site has been designed for consumers, retailers, wholesalers and the catering sector to enable them to find organic food easily. It is also easy to use for people looking to import Irish products to different countries.”
Despite the ‘organic food sales’ title, the site does not allow for direct sales: Rather, it facilitates sales by providing contact details for those with organic food to sell.
Both main organic certification bodies have been involved in this IOFGA-led project. It also has the backing of the department, via Organic Unit funding.
“Each organic certification body approves its own members’ company profile to ensure that all products are licenced organic on the site,” IOFGA add.
According to Grace Maher, IOFGA’s development officer: “We have worked over the past few months with the directory designer and have now trained the other organic certification bodies (OCBs) in how to use the system.
In the next few days each OCB will be notifying their members about the site.
The site is not yet live as we will wait until a sufficient amount of companies have registered before it goes live so people will have a range of products and companies to search once they log on.”
Colin Keogh of Organic Trust said the website could be useful for organic producers who don’t have a strong web presence.
He said: “Producers without their own working website, who typically supply shops or supermarkets, will be more visible to other potential buyers. That’s a real benefit.”
An older website, which still appears prominently when searching for organic farmers, growers and food businesses — organicguide.ie — is still online, but not being updated.
Keogh suggested that as it’s not being updated, users might not return to it if they did not find the entries accurate — thus the need for this new site.
Grace Maher informed me that the promotional strategy for organicfoodsales.ie will include the following:
* Advertising in relevant publications.
* Social media sites.
* Placement on participating companies’ websites/social media sites
* OCB’s publications
* Participation at relevant events e.g. food festivals.
* External links (e.g. Bord Bia).
* Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
A sustained promotional campaign will be important if this website is to succeed. Indeed, the lack of post-launch support for the previous organic listing site limited its efficacy.
This column asked IOFGA general manager, Gillian Westbrook, about the financial side of the site: “There are no profits — it’s a directory that certified organic producers list their wares. Free of charge — no profit made as no money charged.”
It is not yet clear which of the involved organisations owns this website, though Westbrook did not think this was especially important when queried.
The site is due to launch late July or soon after.
With consumers ever more connected online, it would certainly make sense for those who are selling organic produce to be visible and available on this format.
Retail through organic sites, as the UK’s Ocado shows, offers food producers a lot of realisable potential.
How ironic it is then, that as a rural resident writing an article about the internet, this columnist has spent the day without internet access — such can be the capacity of internet availability in the countryside.
The privatisation back in 1999 of Eircom — before a broadband infrastructure was laid out for the nation — was a deeply misguided, short-sighted, ideological error that those of us who live outside the bigger towns and cities are still living with.
