The few times I have been fortunate enough to have entirely organic meals, I have to say those occasions were very enjoyable. There’s something to be said for organic food, just seems to taste better. Maybe it’s in the mind and maybe it isn’t but if I could afford it, I’d be going organic every day.
Anyway, last Friday, Organicity which is a project that aims to promote high quality certified organic products in South-East Asia held a workshop at Samplings On The Fourteenth at Berjaya Times Square. The objective is to spread awareness and introduce us to the best quality organic produce from Italy.
The aim of this workshop is also to support the future needs of Asian markets for organic certification and technical support from overseas partners as the Italian Government is looking to propose to overseas markets the Educational (certification) and Technological support for organic food production. Organicity Project is a three year project (2014-2017) recognized and supported by the European Union and the Italian Government and managed by Bioagricoop s.c.r.l., an Italian non-profit organization founded in 1984 for promoting, training and research in organic agriculture and sustainable development. The Project aims to promote EU organic products, certified in compliance with EC regulation 834/2007 and 889/2008, outside the EU area with a particular focus on South-East Asia, specifically Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India and Brazil.
The organic products promoted are the typical products of the Mediterranean diet : organic extra virgin olive oil, organic balsamic vinegar, organic cereals and processed cereal products, organic fruits and vegetables and processed products, in particular preserves, juices, dried fruits, coffee, organic dairy products such as cheese, organic honey, organic pickles and within oil products.
Present at the workshop was Dr. Riccardo Cozzo, President of Bioagricoop s.c.r.l. with whom I had a brief chat after his presentation. When the co-op first started back in 1984, they had 25 members and now they have more than 700 just in their region alone (their region is Bologna) and in total all over Italy, they have around 8000 members. In the region of Bologna, most of the members grow radish, cucumber, onion, lettuce, tomato and pepperoni.
Dr. Riccardo Cozzo emphasized the 3 main goals of the Organicity project in his presentation:
- To educate consumers in the aspect of the intrinsic characteristics of organic farming products.
- To encourage more consumption of organic food based on the European organic certification with significant added value.
- To motivate importers, distributors, and restaurateurs to the quality of European Organic Products in major retail stores.
A wonderful array of food with organic ingredients was served at the buffet lunch following the presentation. I was in awe of the salmon pieces drizzled with just olive oil. They melted in my mouth and forget about rice, all I ate were the salmon and incredible cheese. This event made my day! I am more in love with organic produce than ever.
More information at http://organicityproject.eu/en and http://www.bioagricoop.org/
The Organicity workshop was organized by Media Writing Focus who also prepared the press release.
