Love your pantry, love our planet
Organic pantry makeover.
Fuelling your body with organic food isn’t only good for you, it’s also good for the planet. Not only are you choosing a chemical-free option for your health and wellbeing, you’re also ensuring the products you consume and purchase are being produced in a way that promotes healthy soil that can be utilised again and again by future generations, as well as conserving biodiversity.
Ceres Organics has been at the forefront of the organics industry for more than 30 years. Their belief is that food should be grown the way nature intended – without synthetic inputs or genetic modification. And as such, they support organic and biodynamic farmers around the world by distributing their organic products.
With organic food, everything is connected. Your health, the soil’s health, biodiversity, the ecosystem and healthy communities all rely on one another. When you choose organic, you’re promoting healthy wildlife, as organic farms create bio-diverse havens for insects, birds and plants. You’re also helping fight climate change, as organic agriculture can be regenerative by taking carbon back into the soil.
The true cost
Ceres Organics’ CEO, Noel Josephson explains, “People think about the health of their families and themselves … and then they start thinking wider, about the planet and what we are leaving for future generations. So it’s a question of what damage are we doing and how can we work with nature to protect our planet. And in-between there’s also the question of taste, people come to organics because of the real taste, not artificial.
“If you address the question of price with organics it’s the question of what’s the true cost? What’s the cost to my health, and to the environment?”
In addressing the notion of the impact we’re having on the environment, beyond how they source and produce their products, Ceres Organics have also made some great advancements with their packaging. They now have a number of products in home-compostable packaging. In fact, Ceres Organics were pioneers in the home-compostable packaging realm here in
New Zealand with the packaging created in 2017 for their Fair Trade
IBD White Quinoa. It’s made from renewable resources, including cellulose, GM-free corn sources and a renewable raw material from trees. The great thing about home-compostable packaging is that you can pop it into your compost bin at home, and the combination of heat, water, oxygen, soil and microorganisms found in your typical home compost system lets the packaging break down and return to the earth.
“We’re committed to sustainability, people and the planet, which is why one of our goals is to improve the packaging we use. This is something that’s really important to us and our consumers,” explains Josephson.
Ceres Organics are gradually moving more of their products into home-compostable packaging, including several of their grains, muesli and more recently their flour. Considering organic food isn’t treated with anything, there’s a greater risk of insect infestation, and it’s also more susceptible to oxygen and moisture if the appropriate packaging isn’t used. This makes it tricky to move away from traditional plastic packaging, but Ceres Organics is working hard to move in that direction. Besides home compostable solutions, they have a number of products in glass jars, like their nut butter range. These jars are made in Auckland from recycled glass, sand, soda ash and limestone, and can be processed and recycled again. They have also just relaunched their Paleo Breakfast Mixes in reusable glass jars.
Next time you’re doing your grocery shop, take a look at the organic options available and see if you can take steps to give your pantry an organic makeover – Ceres Organics make this easy as they have a broad range of food products to cover most of your needs. You’ll not only be doing something good for your own health and wellbeing, but you’ll also be supporting the welfare of organic growers, as well as the health of the planet.