February 23, 2017 A newly launched modern farming company,Bowery, is growing what they call the worlds first post-organic produce. Their concept breaks from traditional agricultural practices by growing plants indoors in vertical rows without any pesticides. With the help of proprietary technology, Bowery can closely monitor the growth of their crops and meticulously manage the resources needed. More than 80 types of crops are currently being grown at the companys farm in Kearny, New Jersey, and they are selling several types of greens and herbs in stores in the New York region.

The idea for the company spawned when co-founder and CEO Irving Fain discovered a promising trend in LED lighting cost and efficiency that could improve indoor farming. The pricing of LED lights dropped dramatically a little over 5 years ago, Fain says. Weve also seen the efficiency more than double. What makes this even more exciting is that research suggests that this trend will continue. This means that not only are LEDs a viable solution for indoor farming today, but this solution continues to scale out in the future.

While traditional farming methods waste resources and endanger our future food supply, advancements in indoor farming make it possible to address a wide range of agricultural issues, Fain adds. He teamed up with co-founders David Golden and Brian Falther to start Bowery.

Agriculture consumes 70 percent of available water globally, and we use over 700 million pounds of pesticides each year in the United States alone, Fain says. Bowery is working to change that. As the population grows, Fain and his team believe their company can provide more efficient food to help meet increasing demands around the world. TheU.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reportsthat food production will need to increase by 70 percent to feed an additional 2.3 billion people by 2050.

Bowerys model begins with non-GMO seeds that are planted in vertical rows in an indoor growing environment to optimize space and eliminate the need for soil.According to the company, Bowerys system is more than 100 times more productive on the same footprint of land. FarmOS, a technology system built by the Bowery team, allows crops to grow year-round, at a faster rate, and using 95-percent less water than traditional agriculture. FarmOS creates ideal conditions using automation, LED lighting that mimics the sun, and a 24-hour monitoring to ensure a reliable yield without wasting resources.

Fain calls these post-organic crops the next evolution of produce. Unlike organic products that might utilize organic pest management products, Bowery crops are grown without using any pesticides at all.

Another part of Bowerys process is growing the produce close to the point of consumption. Their farm in Kearny currently distributes to Foragers Market locations in New York City, with plans to expand into select Whole Foods in the tri-state area. Bowery products are also used at Tom Colicchios restaurants, Craft and Fowler & Wells in New York City. This proximity ensures that produce will reach stores and restaurants within one day of being picked, when it is at the height of freshness and flavor. The company has plans for future farms following the same model.

Bowerys packaged greens start at US$3.49. As we scale, we plan to drive down our costs and deliver the highest quality produce at a price that makes it even more accessible to all, Fain says. The products available now include kale mix, baby kale, basil, arugula, butterhead lettuce, and mixed greens. Additional items will be offered soon.

Bowery has been in the works for more than two years now, but their official launch on February 23, 2017, marks their formal introduction to consumers. Were very proud of the work weve done and are excited for consumers to learn more about what Bowery is doing to address some of the complex issues in agriculture, Fain says.

This story originally appeared on Food Tank.

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Is organic food pass? New food producer says 'post organic' is the ... - Christian Science Monitor

Image care of Restaurant Nora

Organic pioneer Nora Pouillon has been honored with a 2017 James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize her commitment to bringing delicious, organic food to America.

Pouillonseponymous Washington establishmentwas the first certified organic restaurant in the U.S. an enormous feat, considering that in 1979 when she opened, organic food was still rare enough that she had to purchase whole animals to be able toput organic meat on her menu.

In addition to her restaurant, Pouillon also helped establish the FreshFarm Markets network of Washington-area farmers markets and sat on the board of Earth Day Network and The Amazon Conservation Team, among other endeavors in the world of sustainable, healthful food.

James Beard means something really personal to me, says Austrian-born Pouillon, who remembers learning to cook through Beards cookbooks and magazine articles.

James Beard was my big hero, she told the Washington Post. He believed in local, seasonal food, and he cooked delicious food,but simple food, and thats what I wanted to do.

Pouillon even remembers a day when James Beard himself came into her restaurant about two years before he died, plagued, at that point, by terrible gout, yet still offering words of encouragement for her mission.

I cant even remember if he had a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, she says. He just came and sat with me for half an hour, and then he left. But that was more than anybody else got!

She recalls that when she told him how difficult it was to explain her philosophy to Americans a whole-animal philosophy defined by quality ingredients he replied, Theyll come around.

I guess they did come around! she says. You know, 40 years later.

For this reason, Pouillon says, the James Beard Award is even more meaningful than a Michelin star ever could have been.

A Michelin star is for the restaurant, its for the food, and its for the dcor and for the service, but for me, the restaurant is much more a life lesson for people, she says. To learn that you can eat what you want and feel good about it if you just make sure that the product itself is clean and certified organic.

Regarding todays culinary landscape, Pouillons influence is clear, and it is this influence that the James Beard Foundation wanted to recognize and reward.

As the first chef to open an all-organic restaurant over 38 years ago, Nora has truly impacted the way people and the industry think about the food we eat, saidSusan Ungaro, president of the James Beard Foundation, in a press release.

The Awardis the perfect end to73-year-old Pouillons career. After announcing her impending retirement, she is currently attempting to sell Restaurant Nora and the historic buildings in which it is located. Sofar, she has not found a chef willing to take on the task.

To run a restaurant like I did is very complicated, very time-consuming, and very expensive, she says, noting that organic ingredients can cost between 20 and 40 percent more than their conventional counterparts. It will take an enormous amount of courage and dedication to fill Pouillons shoes.

Pouillon will accept the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Awardin May in Chicago, a reward that shows just how much the culinary community has recognized her mission to teach people to eat more healthfully.

That was my passion, she says. To basically save this country from being unhealthy.

Related on Organic AuthorityNew Research Finds Organic Food Offers More Superior Health Benefits than Conventional These 61 Badass Disruptors Are Changing Your Food System My Organic Life by Nora Pouillon: Memoir of an Organic Pioneer

Emily Monaco is an American food and culture writer based in Paris. She loves uncovering the stories behind ingredients and exposing the face of our food system, so that consumers can make educated choices. Her work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Vice Munchies, and Serious Eats.

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Organic Food Legend Nora Pouillon Receives James Beard Award - Organic Authority

Organic vegetables at a farmers market. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

More than 90 per cent of Irish shoppers buy organic produce at least once a week, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Andrew Doyle has said.

He told the Seanad on Wednesday this was clear evidence of the growing public awareness of the organic brand.

We have an opportunity to capitalise on this, he added. This includes replacing imported organic products with Irish goods wherever possible.

Mr Doyle said Brexit was a recognised challenge for the organic sector

The UK was a very important market for our organic produce, he said. However, currently both countries are producing organic food to harmonised EU regulatory standards, he added.

Any deviation from these harmonised standards could lead to a disruption in trade in the short term with potential increased bureaucracy and costs to exporters.

Mr Doyle said it was an area the Government would continue to monitor closely as the process for negotiating Brexit began.

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Over 90% buy organic produce at least once a week, Seanad told - Irish Times

Organic Food Sales Are Booming; Why Are American Farmers Crying Foul? Wall Street Journal (subscription) Organic grain is flooding into the U.S., depressing prices and drawing complaints from domestic organic farmers who fear their harvests are held to stricter standards than foreign-raised crops. Turkey, for instance, vaulted ahead to become by far the ...

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Organic Food Sales Are Booming; Why Are American Farmers Crying Foul? - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

In growth terms, organic is now outperforming the non-organic grocery market. Photograph: Richard Drury/Getty Images

So much for the view that organic food is just a navel-gazing lifestyle preoccupation for the neurotic rich. The latest UK market figures show that sales for organic produce are booming at their strongest in a decade with a 15% hike last year at Tesco alone.

In growth terms, organic is now outperforming the non-organic grocery market, contradicting cynics who said that at the first whiff of austerity we would ditch high-minded concerns about animal welfare, pesticides and the planet, and join the cheap food scrum.

In anticipation, UK supermarkets cut back on shelf space allotted to organic food to compete with German discount chains. But organic continued to thrive from independent retailers, home-delivery schemes, farm shops and in restaurants. Thoughtful chefs increasingly give organic a big thumbs-up; sales to caterers also shot up by 15% last year. And guess what? Aldi and Lidl shoppers also prefer not to eat pesticide residues or meat from GM-fed livestock that have never seen a green field.

Organic loyalists have developed a shopping strategy that makes organic food accessible, even if youre on a tight budget: organic fruit, vegetables and herbs bought from growers, or at farmers markets, are regularly cheaper than the conventional equivalent from supermarkets, which routinely profiteer on fruit and veg. Equally, never make the mistake of popping into your local small-format supermarket for organic eggs because you will pay around 2.49 for six, as opposed to the wholefood store/market/box scheme price of 1.65-1.99.

In the dry goods department (staples such as flour, oats, rice and peanut butter), the price differential between buying organic and non-organic is often slim. Once again, organic can actually be cheaper, particularly if minimally packaged in a wholefood shop. Happily, organic chocolate costs the same as good-quality non-organic.

There is excellent British beef and lamb from non-organic animals that have had a decent life, so there is less reason to pay a premium for organic red meat. Organic poultry and pork are always significantly more expensive than non-organic 12 as opposed to 3 for a chicken but free-ranging, organic pigs and poultry are reared in a measurably more humane way and usually taste discernibly better. Knowing this, you might decide to eat poultry and pork less, but stick with organic.

Organic milk and yogurt are more expensive than supermarket equivalent economy lines, but not necessarily than their mid-range or premium ones, and the cows are happier: no zero grazing allowed.

Perhaps the trick is to be pro-organic without making a religion out of it. Buy organic in the categories that matter most to you, but regularly test any presumption that it is costing you more. You could get a pleasant surprise.

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How to surf the organic food boom on the cheap | Life and style | The ... - The Guardian

Chicagos suburbs have famously already seen the launch of one fast-food giant thanks to Ray Kroc and McDonalds in Des Plaines. The very first Nics Organic Fast Food opens sometime this month in Rolling Meadows and their ownership team hopes the debut of Chicagolands first organic fast-food chain will also lead to success at 2101 S. Plum Grove Road. Theyre attempting to create a recognizable brand that includes a mascot.

Farmer Nic wants to tell customers about the virtues of eating organic foods. If a cartoony mascot isnt credible enough, perhaps seals of approval will help. Throughout the restaurant theres stamps that read USDA Organic and Quality Assurance International Certified Organic. QAIs approval meant a lot to CEO Benjamin Brittsan, as it should tell customers how serious Nics is when it comes to serving food without pesticides and chemicals.

But dont mistake organic for fat free. This isnt a place to come to lose weight. Theres burgers, fries and chicken nuggets on the menu. However, there are options like a veggie burger and salad. The aim is a cleaner version of the fast food many Americans grew up eating. Burgers cost about $5. Add fries and a drink and the meal costs under $8.

Interior wise, check out the LED menu screens. They picked a simple and clean look. Nics is also the countrys first organic fast-food drive-thru, which is a boon for the car-centric suburbs.

Both Brittsan and his wife, Nicolette Brittsan, have dreams of expanding all across the country. Check out the photos below of their first restaurant in the Northwest Suburbs, a 10-minute drive north from Woodfield Mall.

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Tour The Very First Nic's Organic Fast Food in Chicago's Suburbs - Eater Chicago

Fruit and veg are not the only growth area. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Demand for organic food is at its highest for more than a decade, according to major retailers.

Thats good news for an industry that was hit hard by the economic downturn but now seems to be returning to rude health as more shoppers say organic food is worth paying the premium for. This week the Soil Association will release its annual report on the state of the organic food market, which is expected to show that it has grown for the fourth consecutive year.

Meanwhile, Tesco says that organic sales in its stores have risen by 15% in the past year. And the home delivery service Ocado, which stocks more than 3,000 organic products, said sales increased 16% last year.

Waitrose also said the sector was thriving. We were the first supermarket to sell organic products in the 1980s and shoppers are as enthusiastic as ever, a spokeswoman said. Our latest figures show year-on-year growth of around 5%.

Significantly, sales of organic produce appear to be rising across all sectors, not just fruit and vegetables. An increasing number of consumers are buying organic fish, dairy produce and grocery items, such as olive oil, pasta and cooking sauces. But experts said price was still a major factor in switching to organic food, as promoted by celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver.

We are seeing that shoppers are increasingly looking to buy organic food but it needs to be affordable and consistently high quality all year round for it to be considered a viable option, said a spokeswoman for Tesco. The popularity of organic food began with fruit and vegetables, but we are now seeing customers exploring areas such as grocery, fish and dairy. So you can now use organic produce for the whole meal.

Adrian Blackshaw, chair of the Organic Trade Board, which recently won EU funding to help promote organic food in Britain and Denmark, said: Traditionally the two main challenges for customers buying organic are the price and the availability. Over the past decade we have seen this improve across the industry and now the organic market is in a clear growth phase in the UK.

Discounters are upping their game and increasing their organic offer

Adam Wakeley, managing director of Organic Farm Foods, said: The organic food revival is gathering pace thanks to retailers offering a wider range of quality foods at more affordable prices. They continue to support the organic sector and the result is continued growth, outstripping non-organic foods.

Last years Organic Market Report from the Soil Association revealed that the sector was worth almost 2bn in 2015. Sales growth of organic produce outperformed the non-organic grocery market, which decreased by 0.9% in the same period. The association said independent retailers and home delivery box scheme companies had helped boost organic sales. Another key driver was the catering industry whose use of organic food grew by more than 15% last year.

There is a clear opportunity for supermarkets to stock more organic, as our research showed people are having to shop around to find what they want, said Clare McDermott, business development director at Soil Association Certification. The discounters are upping their game and increasing their organic offer, as are other outlets such as Amazon Fresh. There is a huge and currently untapped potential to increase organic sales even further in supermarkets.

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Organic food sales soar as shoppers put quality before price - The Guardian

Established 30 years ago this March, The Market is both a village grocer, providing healthy food options and personal care products, as well as a caf. Both areas of this Front Street shop offer organic ingredients and minimally processed (clean!) foods.

The Market was born from owner Shelly Scoggins desire to find a healthier way of living for her family. At the time she had a new baby on the way and finding a source for organic food options on the North Fork was nearly impossible. Thats when she knew it was the right time to open her market.

Today, youll find a wide variety of organic produce, vitamins, personal care products and gluten-free foods on the shelves. The Markets menu is creative and spans breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as smoothies and desserts. We chatted with Scoggin in the corner of her caf one afternoon at lunchtime and found out more about this gem of a health food store and eatery. (more)

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organic produce Archives - Northforker - Northforker (blog)

Organic food lovers, rejoice: it's Biofach week again. Biofach, the world's leading trade fair for organic products, is held annually in Nuremberg, Germany, a town in Franconia that was once the capital of the medieval "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation."

From the time of the empire's founding by Charlemagne in the year 800 until its final dissolution by Napoleon in 1806, and fora century after that, the people of the empire - from prince to pauper - rigorously adhered to a diet composed entirely of organic food, nearly all of it produced at most a few miles from the point of consumption, with a minimal CO2-emissions footprint.

Nowadays, even the most conscientious participant incommunity-supported agriculture or the mostpatchouli-soaked, Birkenstock-wearing neo-hippie would have great difficulty meeting the standard of food localism and environmental correctitude that prevailed during Nuremberg's imperial glory years.

Back to the future?

Today, about 95 percent of the food sold in Germany - as measured by retail sales value - isn't organic. That's despite the fact that total organic food salesin Germany havebeen growing steadily for years. Sales growth has reached an impressive 10percent per annum over the last couple of years.

But most food continues to beproducedwith the help ofa variety of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. The consequences, according to organic farmers and many environmental scientists, include depleted soils, reduced biodiversity, polluted waters, and inhumane treatment of farm animals.

These ducklings will live on a free-range organic farm

Princely prices prevent paupers partaking

Toda,y the princes of Europe often eat organic food, and the paupers generally don't. That's because organic food - called "bio"in Germany - is more expensive than food produced using lower-cost "conventional"farming systems.

"Bio"products typically cost anywhere from 15 to 100 percent more than non-organic, according to Alexander Beck, an organic farmer whoheads upGermany's Association of Organic Food Processors.

Lifestyle, cultural and educational background help determine whether or not people buy organic food; price isn't the only factor. But it isthe dominant factor, and one that is not likely to change, according to some industry insiders at Biofach.

Organic food is unlikely to break out of the5-per-cent niche product category, to achieve a market share of 25 percent or more, unless "bio"becomescheaper than conventional food, according toKatharina Reuter, managing director of UnternehmensGrn e.V., a national association of green businesses in Germany.

"Pesticide bananas have to be more expensive than bio-bananas," she told DW. "That's the long and short of it."

In Reuter's view, conventionalfood has become absurdly cheap -but only because its prices don't take environmental or health costs into account: "If true cost accounting were applied, conventionally produced food would be more expensive than organic food."

Organic farmer Beck saidthat what's needed is changes in prices of farming inputs, in line with "true cost accounting."Among other things, thiswill mean putting a price on pollution and making sure polluters - rather than society - pay that price.

Organic farming is a worldwide trend - Delowar Jahan in Bangladesh encourages fellow farmers to take it up organic

Pricing inputs right

Beck pointed to the water quality issues associated with Germany's vast pork production industry, which he said produce about 30 percent more pork than the country can consume - "and from a health perspective, people eat far too much meat anyway," he added.

Too many pigs concentrated in feedlots generateconcentrated wastewhich pollutes surface waters, with rains washing the pollution into streams and lakes. A price per tonand hectare could create incentives to avoid this.

Similarly, a price per tonof fertiliser could incentivize farmers to avoid over-application of fertiliser, which also pollutes waters as well as harming soil ecosystems.

"However, for some things, like ensuring humane treatment of farm animals, financial incentives aren't really workable, and we need straightforward regulations," Beck said.

The organic framework in Europe takes into account soil health, animal welfare, and safeguarding biodiversity

Reforming subsidy systems

As things currently stand, Beck and Reuter explained, explicit funds through the European budget subsidize conventional agriculture by paying farmers a flat amount per hectare of farmland. The European Union's enormous agricultural subsidy budget should be reallocated to pay farmers for improved farming practices instead, they think.

Another possible source of subsidies for organic farming could be raised by applying a flat surcharge, or "environmental user fee"of a few percent of the retail price on all conventionally produced food, with the proceeds collected into an organic farming fund used to help conventional farmers to shift their operations to organic methods.

Beck and Reuter both said that if the right combination of regulatory reforms and financial incentiveswere put in place, farmers would naturally shift to organic farming, because when costs are no longer externalized,overall itcostsmore to produce food conventionallythan by organic farming methods.

Lobbyists in the meat industry don't want non-meat sausages, like the organic, vegan ones pictured here, to be called "sausage"

Lobby power

But even though organic food and animal welfare lobbyists have tried for years to promotefinancial incentives and regulations for organics, progress has been limited.

That's because the huge majority of farmers remain invested in existing non-organicfarming systems, whose lobbies have effectively opposed most proposed changes, Beck said.

Moreover, conventional farmers are afraid that if Germany toughened regulations, for example to require chicken and pig farmers to create more humane conditions for their animals, they'd be at a competitive disadvantage compared to producers in other countries.

That problem could be solved with import restrictions -but any restrictions would conflict with freetrade agreements. These, in turn, are based on anassumption thatunhampered free trade is an inherently good thing.

Although this idea is shared by most European economists and policy-makers,it'scontroversial in other quarters, especially withregardto food supplies.

A different labeling system could help too, according to Reuter.

"Really, in future we want to see a situation in which organic food is normal and unlabeled, whereas food produced with synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, or with inhumane methods, would be labeled."

"'Conventional' bananas would be labeled 'pesticide bananas,' and organic bananas would just be ... bananas."

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Growing the organic food market - Deutsche Welle

Dive Brief:

A recent TechSci Research report revealed that the global organic food market is projected to grow at a CAGRof more than 14% from 2016 to 2021. In order for supply to keep up with this demand, however, more farmers will need to get on board the organic train.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture teamed up with the Organic Trade Association to start a program that certifies produce grown on farmland that's in the process of switching to organic, making it easier for farmers to make the switch.

Going organic provides some pretty obvious benefits to manufacturers, too. People interested in these products, as well as those that are non-GMO,are more inclined to pay higher prices for food.

The current challenge for manufacturers is that organic ingredients are more expensive and not as readily available as non-organic produce. This raises prices, which could discourage consumers who are on the fence about buying organic It could also hurt a brand's reputation if it finds itself with too low a supply of a particular organic product.

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Demand for organic non-GMO grains outpaces production | Food Dive - Food Dive