How organic labels and conscious users are shaping an industry on trust

Organic labels and conscious customers are manoeuvring policy potholes to shape an industry based on mutual trust

Kourtney Kardashian recently posted a picture of herself on Twitter, stretched on a poolside recliner in a white bikini, with the caption: “I make sure to always buy THESE organic.” Her sisters Kim, Khloé and Kylie concurred. And her 23 million followers were suitably intrigued. The picture is a clickbait ad to the Kourtney app, where the mother of three reveals all about her organic meal plans, for $24.99, or Rs 1,700, for a year’s access.

That’s roughly the amount it would cost a family of four in India to move to organic groceries for a month, estimates a joint report by consultancy EY and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). Remove the glamour and the posturing, and you have a similar conclusion. Organic is becoming a necessary expense.

New organic labels are mushrooming in India by the kilo. The stories of these brands owe, in effect, to a premium repackaging of the ancient wisdom of eating natural for good health. But in a toxic environment — literally — anything organic sells like the discovery of a new science. The EY-Assocham report estimates that the Indian organic packaged foods market is expected to cross $1 billion, and is poised to grow at 17 per cent year-on-year.

As more consumers raise sceptical eyebrows at casually bandied marketing buzzwords like “fresh” and “natural”, the appeal of the word “organic” has only grown. A section of these consumers is informed, health-conscious and happy to participate in environmentally responsible buying. But the bulk of organic buyers are those caught in an unexamined frenzy of rejecting everything “chemical”.

While both groups are willing to spend the extra money for chemical-free products, they remain baffled about quality assurances. Prices of organic products vary considerably across brands and adding to the confusion are multiple logos issued by different government and third-party agencies defining levels of authenticity.

The government recently attempted to clear the confusion. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) unveiled a common “Jaivik Bharat” logo for natural and organic products. India’s nodal agency for organic farming guidelines, the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP), also issued a notification in December last year to all organic producers and sellers to get organic certification by July 1 this year (small farmers who sell directly to the end consumer are exempted). This move was vehemently opposed by farming communities and advocacy groups, who argued that the infrastructure and processes to help farmers transition from conventional to organic farming were not in place. The government has since put the notification on hold and is consulting with different stakeholders to revise it.

Kavitha Kuruganti, national convenor of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), calls the government move “ridiculous”. Argues Kuruganti: “They brought in the regulation for mandatory certification on December 27 (last year) that says that if you apply today, you will be certified as an organic farmer only two-three years from now.” Allowing only six months for certification is simply unfair, she says.

Kavitha Kuruganti, National convenor, Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture

There are two ways conventional farmers can transition to organic. One route is through the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS), in which a collective of at least four farmers applies for organic certification in its state and vouches for each other’s organic practices. “But there are many farmers who’ve written to their regional councils for certification and have never heard back from them,” claims Kuruganti. The second is to approach one of the 28 government-recognised third-party agencies (TPA) — many of which, such as ECOCERT and Control Union, follow global standards — for a certificate. Organic certification costs anything between Rs 10,000 and Rs 70,000, with a similar renewal cost every year.

“While chemical fertilisers continue to be subsidised, the government doesn’t incentivise farmers for organic production,” says Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya, a network of seed-keepers and organic producers.

Muddying the waters even more is a generalised suspicion of the authenticity of the certification process. When certification agencies visit once a year or so to check on a farmer’s organic practices, they often look for “obvious signs”, like fertiliser bags lying around, says Madhu Chandan S C, a techie-cum-entrepreneur who returned from the US in 2014 to start Organic Mandya, a Bengaluru-based retail chain for organic produce. Chandan calls the process an eyewash: “Say, if you have 200 farmers in a place, they’ll probably test soil samples from just 20.” Kuruganti calls this “eye-sight verification” and adds that farms for testing are also often selected for ease of access.

Their produce may be sourced from certified organic farmers, but retailers like Organic Mandya are also required to have TPA certification. In their first two years, they sold on the basis of good faith alone: it’s only been a year since Chandan’s outfit received certification.

Inside an Organic Mandya store in Bengaluru

Gagan Singh, co-founder of Delhi-based Live Organic, a retailer and exporter of organic products, points out that retailers can more easily afford the cost of certification than farmers. A majority of India’s farmers are economically crippled, with negative earnings in many cases. “Since there’s little by way of subsidy for organic farmers, the only solution is that the retailers bear their certification cost,” Singh says. He says he’s formed a collective of 25 farmers in Uttar Pradesh to help them get certified under the PGS system.

Praakritik is a Mumbai-based certified organic retailer born in 2013. Its founder, Dharmishtha Goenka, says her team works intimately with farmers in Maharashtra and Gujarat, and also helps them find direct buyers abroad. “Organic farming reduces yield and the produce moves in small quantities. This is why the final product is 45-50 per cent more expensive. We give the farmers a sense of what and how much we’ll pick from them, so they can sow accordingly,” says Goenka.

Soil inspection at the Praakritik farm in Maharashtra

A stamp of authenticity can be important for a customer, explains Live Organics’ Singh, but a chain of trust is necessary to grow the industry.

In a nationwide survey in 2012, FSSAI found that 68.4 per cent of the milk tested was adulterated. Which helps explain why Shashank T, a yoga instructor in Bengaluru, has 30 empty milk packets in his bag that he will hand in for a 10 per cent discount on organic products. “It can get quite expensive to buy organic pulses and grains,” he says, heading to one of Organic Mandya’s five outlets. 

The milk he buys is of the A2 variety (from desi cows), and Shashank describes the obvious difference in the taste and thickness of this milk compared to “regular” milk. The price difference is stark, too. Believing that A2 milk is “automatically” organic, he shells out Rs 90 for a litre of Organic Mandya milk. Regular pasteurised milk costs about Rs 40 a litre. This desi milk comes from free-grazing cattle living in and around organic farms, which are not fed a feed fortified with chemical fertilisers and steroids. The cattle’s chemical-free feed makes this A2 milk “organic”, says Chandan. And it’s an opinion mirrored by others in the industry.

Holstein Friesian cattle grazing freely at the 4S farm in Rewari, Haryana

Delhi-based 4S Foods sells “organically produced” milk and dairy products to approximately 1,500 families a day. Its founder, Gajendra Singh, says, “We grow organic fodder on our farm, leave our cattle to graze freely, don’t inject growth hormones such as oxytocin, or antibiotics. Yet, we aren’t certified.” Singh would have liked to have had his farm certified but says the organic guidelines in India, similar to US standards, mandate that a farmer have one hectare of land per two cows — practically impossible to meet. His sales are based on trust too.

Sunil Panwar, the founder of Fair Dairy in Haryana’s Karnal, corroborates Gajendra Singh’s statements. “We follow very stringent hygiene standards and waste management systems,” says Panwar. Fair Dairy also conducts and publishes sample tests of milk for its customers to examine.

At Brown Apron, a three-year-old start-up that supplies meat and dairy products across Bengaluru, free-range poultry or country chicken is classified as an organic offering. The free-range chicken is different from Brown Apron’s farm-range poultry in terms of what the birds eat as well as price. While both are free of pesticides and preservatives (they “aren’t on drugs”), the environment that the free-range chicken grows in is also organic or “completely natural”. 

 Brown Apron's farm range chicken costs Rs 200 per kg and the organic variety is Rs 449 per kg. “Cost is the primary concern for most buyers,” says Faiz Azim, co-founder of Brown Apron. “We periodically send both kinds of chicken for lab testing to ensure that there are no steroids, preservatives or other chemicals,” he continues. This is another example of a retailer stepping up to ensure the produce’s quality. Like many others, Brown Apron has a faith-based relationship with its suppliers — it has never felt the need for certification. 

Many organic labels that begin on a small-scale are also bogged down by compliance and certification challenges. One of the few organic-certified skincare brands, Coimbatore-based Juicy Chemistry uses only edibles that the skin can absorb without breaking a sweat. Founded by husband-and-wife Pritesh and Megha Asher, the brand has scaled up from a 250 sq ft kitchen in 2014 to a 7,500 sq ft facility. They only received certification last year. “There are no organic guidelines for skincare brands in India, so we had to get the French firm ECOCERT to authenticate us,” says Pritesh Asher.

Carrot, helichrysum and neroli soap with a natural sponge by Juicy Chemistry

He says the battle with compliances — from getting a manufacturing licence to organic certification — is long-drawn-out, but helps in achieving best management practices. Yet, every day brings a new challenge. It’s difficult to source certified-organic ingredients, such as bee’s wax, in India because many beekeepers here are unaware of the certification process, Asher explains.

The Ashers source quality ingredients such as the kakadu plum from Australia and hemp seed oil from Germany and take personal feedback from their customers. “I contacted them for product recommendation for my skin type. Megha personally responded to each of my queries and followed up for feedback,” says Tripti Chawla, a Juicy Chemistry customer in Delhi. “It’s more about how the product feels than what a certificate says,” she adds.

For anyone who’s asking how to differentiate between organic and non-organic produce, Manas Arvind, founder of the Grainny brand of “healthy snacks” and co-organiser of the weekly Gurgaon Organic Farmers Market, has a simple answer: you reap what you sow. Like most organic brand owners and advocates, he says the best way to authenticate your food is to know your farmer.

This is why, at 7 am on a Sunday morning, even before the farmers from Jhajjar, Rewari, Hisar, and other districts in Haryana, are ready with their stalls at Club Patio, their customers have queued up. Some have even visited the farms in the past. By 9 am, most farmers have sold all their produce.

Bhim Singh, who had come with a load of leafy greens, displays what he’s earned. “We would spend a full day in a mandi to sell vegetables for Rs 2,000. I have over Rs 6,000 here in just two hours. And it’s the first time in a while I don’t owe anybody anything,” he smiles.