Speciality Food Feb/March 2024

32 “H ad I known that regenerative agriculture was going to come along, I would have said ‘I’m going to be regenerative, aiming to be organic’ rather than full organic,” says William Kendall. This is certainly an interesting perspective from someone who has been involved in the organic movement for nearly three decades. William, who has a broad take on Britain’s food and drink industry, being both a farmer, and a key player in businesses such as Cawston Press, is not alone in his thoughts though. As Penny Fagle, founder of the newOrganic Cheesemakers Network recently said, consumers are questioning the value of organic, which is leading producers (especially those in dairy) to consider @specialityfood mainstream food and drink offerings. Though organic products are still not, he believes, as widely available as they should be, largely due to consumer perception, fuelled by supermarkets –which are, of course, where the majority of the British public load up their trollies. “Often organic is seen as a way of charging a premium to affluent shoppers, and the expectation is organic is expensive. It doesn’t need to be. There is more organic food available now than there was a generation ago,” William says. There are lots of brands he says, such as Green & Black’s, Yeo Valley and Godminster, that have built their entire business around being organic, but the ‘sustainable message’ has inmany ways overtaken the conversation – all while manufacturers, buyers, retailers and consumers try to really pin down what ‘sustainable’ means today. And this is an area where he’s seen the biggest shift in the multiples driving change. “Cawston Press are a big supplier to supermarkets, and we are incredibly under pressure to reduce carbon emissions and to explain howwe are doing more and more to benefit the planet rather than damage it. I know supermarkets are driving this across the supply base. Some argue it’s not fast enough, but they are doing it!” whether it’s worth certifying, or putting their efforts into working in a different way. William and his wife Miranda decided to dedicate their land at Maple Farm to organic methods when they set roots 25 years ago. It was something they felt (and still feel) very passionate about. At the time, Williamhad just bought Green & Black’s with colleagues, and there was an element of having to ‘practice what you preach’. “Organic was really taking off the UK at the time. I was slightly embarrassed that I wasn’t organic farming,” he admits. “The only evidence back then that it was better was that it was good for biodiversity, and there were quick response times when you stopped using inorganic fertiliser. You got the bird life back, and the wildlife back. We like selling things, and felt the organic seal of approval gave us an opportunity to talk about what we were doing, and to not just be commodity farmers. Organic is the gold standard of farming. It doesn’t have all the answers, but it definitely does have a few of them.” Times they are a changing The organic movement has, says William, grown from a tiny niche to a significant minority within It’s going to take more than encouraging business to work greener, to get shoppers to vote with their feet though. More people than ever before are aware of the need to be environmentallymindful, but William’s experience is that end consumers don’t tend to put all their eggs into one basket in this regard. “They buy stuff because it’s delicious and it’s good for their families. Thinking about nutrient density and potential chemical contamination –this is muchmore where consumer interest is going to come from.” People worry about what they’re eating, he says. “The fact something was produced with renewable energy has to be a good thing, but for some, that won’t be enough.” The challenge, William adds, for SMEs trying to do the right thing, is it can be difficult to achieve everything you want to unless you have the backing of investors, or it was part of your mandate when you started your company, as was the case with Green & Black’s. “It was all around buying organic cocoa and cacao. The rawmaterial is one of the most sprayed agricultural crops in the world. Setting up as organic, we were specifically dealing with that. It was niche, and a high-risk niche, but one that others have copied now.” Industry moves too slowly, he says. “We need to act now on things like regenerative agriculture. It has a baseline that has to be better for the planet – but this has to be driven by the consumer.” A new lens Although there are no legally prescribed rules or regulations around regenerative farming, and the debate continues as to whether ‘We need to act nowon regenerative agriculture’ WilliamKendall tells Speciality Food farming in a way that’s better for people, wildlife and soil health is critical to the future of our edible landscape