Celebrity chef Rachel Green will host this year’s Re:fresh Conference on May 8, and is excited about playing a central role in the industry’s attempt to strike a balance between the perceptions and reality of organic and conventional produce.
“I am from a farming background and look forward very much to debating one of the key topics of this era in British farming with a knowledgeable trade audience,” she said.
“I think it will be very interesting to see what results the Re:fresh consumer and trade surveys throw up. In my experience, people are often not given credit for knowing as much as they do about food, so the comparison between the perceptions of the consumer and the industry that provides them with their food will give us a valuable insight into the issues that will undoubtedly dominate the debate I am chairing.”
Consumers are not necessarily armed with the right information to make an educated choice of which fruit and vegetables to buy, said Green. “If people want to buy organic fruit and vegetables, then obviously that’s fine, but it does trouble me that for whatever reason, they may believe that conventionally grown produce is in some way inferior, or unsafe,” she added.
“I think consumers are confused about organic messages. How do you square the issue of something being grown locally, maybe a couple of miles away, but conventionally, with something that is grown on the other side of the world, but organically? Equally, are those organic standards on the other side of the world the same as ours in Britain?”
As for her own approach, Green added: “I am very even-handed about it,” she said. “For me, as a chef, it’s a question of quality and flavour. I have friends who farm fantastically good-quality organic produce, and friends who, similarly, farm amazing conventionally farmed produce.”
