In light of the establishment of a new Irish organic milk producers company (IOMP), it is apt to look again at the organic diary sector across Europe.
In the UK and Ireland, there are both similarities and differences between the respective dairy sectors of the two countries. The UK was importing milk at the beginning of 2008, whereas now it exports. While shortage in supply on mainland Europe is part of this, yet again, the sterling differential helps UK farmers over and above their competitors.
Milk sales in the UK in 2008 were up 10%, according to the Soil Association. This has been put down to the clarity of the organic dairy message and the relatively low price premium organic milk and milk products carry.
Still, this was not enough to stop 'Rachael's Organic' from becoming just 'Rachael's'. The company themselves claim to be suprised by the furore, and put it down to a branding move, a mere name simplification.
�We have been astonished by the attention this small change has attracted,� stated group spokesperson Steve Clarke. �In part it is because there is currently a perceived downturn in sales of organic produce elsewhere but this was not the reason for the logo tweak, which has been in the pipeline for several months since the autumn.�
Across Rachel�s packaging, the manufacturer claimed that the term �organic� would still be highly visible and that it was responding to consumer research conducted last summer that found preference for a simpler brand name.
In others words, like Maria (Carey) Whitney (Houston) Lenny (Kravitz) and of course Bertie (Ahern), when consumers get to know a product well, they know it on a first name basis.
�Rachel�s organic yogurts have in fact seen an 18.3 per cent - year on year - increase in sales for the first quarter of 2009 so we are seeing fantastic growth,� stated Clarke.
Further afield, scientists in Germany, where organic milk is a whopping 11% of the market, claim to have invented an organic milk test.
One of the issues with organic is that the validation process is done through checking on actions, rather than on the products themselves. So paper trials, inspections are used to decide if someone is organic.
Researchers at the Federal Institute of Nutrition and Food Research, Kiel, developed a test based on an analysis of milk fat for the ratio of stable isotopes of carbon.
They used it to identify milk samples from cows raised on feed containing a higher ration of maize, more of which is used in conventional feed than organic rations in Germany.
Organically raised cows are fed less maize but more grass. However, the transferability of this test to other regions is questionable, as the feeding regimes differ from country to country.
This research also discovered higher levels of alpha-linolenic acid, or Omega 3 fatty acids. This is now proving to be typical for organic milk over conventional, and may be part of organic milk's appeal.
Likewise research presented in Ireland by Dr. Carlo Leifert (Quality Low Input Food project in Newcastle University) at the Bord Bia Organic conference last September did much the same. This research consistently pointed to organic as superior nutritionally, especially with regard to Omega 3 and the vital 3 to 6 ratio.
However again, the issue may partly be the grass levels fed. Low input farming (ie low on concentrates high on grass) also scored well nutritionally in Leifert's research.
The make up of the ration has proven to be important too: Researchers (again from Newcastle) found that by adding a mix of soya beans, rapeseed and linseed to the daily food rations for each cow kept indoors, milk quality improved and was comparable to the milk from an outdoor cow eating a fresh grass diet.
In Ireland, both organic and conventional cows eat a higher proportion of grass than elsewhere in Europe, due to the amount it rains here.
Whatever about the rain, across Europe, organic milk and milk products continue to sell well and to carry a strong message.
With a pool of up to 4 million litres of milk, it is likely that the IOMP will have a bright future.
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