Organic Tip #3: Buyer Beware of Sneaks

I've recently noticed a few companies are getting sneaky with their brand names. Some companies are using 'organic' in the name of a non-organic product. For instance, Nature's Baby Organics is a company that offers personal care products specifically targeted for kids and babies. Since the company's name is "Nature's Baby Organics" the term organic is on all their products. However, less than half of their products are actually certified organic!! That means this company is selling non-organic products with the term organic on it. At first glance all the products appear to be organic because of the size and style of font they have used for the 'organics' part of their name. Only after deeper inspection from a knowledgeable consumer, it is apparent that the product isn't in fact organic at all. Is this an inadvertent naming oversight or a deliberate ploy to lure consumers into believing their products are organic when they are most certainly not? I am quite confident that it is the latter. Companies like this are ruining the organic name for all the genuine organic companies out there. Once customers realize they have been tricked, they may become less trusting of all things labelled organic, whether genuine or not. Consumer misconceptions about organic processes and products already exist, and companies like this aren't making the term organic any easier for them to understand.

Please people, look for the term "certified organic" on non-food products. Products that are 95% or greater organic must bear the organic certifier's logo. Organic certifiers in Canada are: OCPP (also called Pro-cert Canada Inc.), Ecocert Canada, Quality Assurance International (QAI), Organic Crop Improvement Association Canada (OCIA), Centre for Systems Integration (CSI), Demeter Canada and QMI Organic. Luckily for Canadians new legislation was passed in February that will require all organic products traded across provincial or international borders to carry the Canada Organic (Biologique Canada en français) logo starting June 30, 2009. I will post something on this exciting new logo in June. Products that contain less than 95% organic ingredients cannot use the Canada Organic logo. Hopefully the use of the new logo will clear up some of the consumer confusion around organic, and expose companies like Nature's Baby for the shysters they are. Read your labels and ...