Following an on-line vote by 130,000 people, the new compulsory EU organic logo has been chosen.
From almost 3500 entrants, three were shortlisted and examined to ensure that there were no copyright infringements.
The winning design comprised twelve stars in the shape of a leaf and, according to the EU Commission, �a very straightforward sign containing two clear messages: Nature and Europe�. It was drawn up by German student Dusan Milenkovic, who receives �6000 in prize money.
The identities and nationalities of the three final contenders have not previously been published, to prevent skewing the voting.
The winning design, �Euro-leaf�, gained 63% of the overall vote for his logo.
From 1st July 2010, the organic logo of the EU will be obligatory on all pre-packaged organic products that have been produced in any of the EU Member States and meet the necessary standards.
It will be optional for products imported into the EU. Other private, regional or national logos will be allowed to appear alongside the EU label.
This includes the logos of the Irish Certification bodies and the UK's quite familiar Soil Association logo.
Importantly for food businesses, there will be an 18 month period of grace to use up existing stock of labels.
However new products will face a challenging time getting the logo integrated into their product packaging.
"I'm delighted that we now have a fresh EU organic food logo," said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, who first proposed the competition to select the logo.
"This exercise has raised the profile of organic food and we now have a logo which everyone will be able to identify with. It's a nice elegant design and I look forward to buying products carrying this logo from July this year."
Ireland's largest certification body expressed a mixed opinion on it: �IOFGA are glad to see that the arduous process of designing a new EU Logo for organic products has finally come to an end.
The fact that the process has taken so long may mean that the logo has lost some momentum particularly with some of our members who have repackaged their products in the interim. The final three logos initially did not impress but on closer examination the winning design does have some appeal.�
They go on �It is a clean design with a strong emphasis on Europe which of course is the objective of the logo. It remains to be seen how the logo is used on products and an extensive advertising campaign is important to highlight the new logo to organic consumers.�
UK certification bodies, however, have come out fairly unimpressed by the logo.
Molly Conisbee, director of communications and campaigns at the Soil Association said:
"The Soil Association doesn't believe the EU logo will address the desire of consumers to know more about the provenance of their food...�.
She goes on to claim that �we don't think people who buy organic food are so much concerned about EU origins� compared to other values.
The UK's Organic Farmers and Growers called all the logos �a bit dull and uninformative�.
And yet, the latter also considered another of the three logos to be �hieroglyphic�, and possibly a cause of confusion with its small size and intricate detail.
To be fair to the EU Commission, an inevitable confusion was caused by the use of the word �Bio� in the rest of the EU, and �Organic� in Britain and Ireland, to describe the same certification system.
UK certification bodies seem to be both expressing and pandering to a very British cultural separateness from the EU, whilst also protecting their own economic patch.
The Soil Association, for example, feel that their logo is already very familiar, trusted by consumers, and representative of their �higher� standards.
However, as this new logo will inevitably appear on far more products than any one body certifies, this familiarity may soon be backgrounded by the Euro-Leaf.
