National Organic week NOW Australia and CORE Centre for Organic Research and Education award was handcrafted from recycled timber by Andrew Watson Design.
The Certified Organic industry is expanding rapidly in response to consumer demand. With year on year growth of 15% and a total value of sales of $1.7 billion dollars this industry is one of the real movers right across the country. No longer just about food, the certifying body also looks at cosmetics and clothing.
To recognise Australia’s top performers, the olympic champions of “organic”, a prestigious function was held in Byron Bay in early December. Conducted by the Centre for Organic Research and Education (CORE), the annual industry awards program is one of the highlights of a national line up of organic events and celebrations. The Awards were launched as part of National Organic Week (October 3 – 12). Consumers had one month to cast their votes for their favourite organic stores, brands, products, websites etc.
Costa Georgiadis of ‘wooly beard’ and ABC Gardening Australia fame, presented nine major winner trophies in the highly coveted 2014 Organic Consumer Choice Awards; otherwise know as the OCCA’s. “Recognising the link between healthy food and our wellbeing is highlighted by these awards”, said Costa.
Thousands of consumers around Australia voted for their favourite nominated organic businesses and products through the National Organic Week website. The 40 nominees attracted nearly 6,000 votes.
C-Wise the only WA winner was awarded the trophy for – Best Organic Input Supplier. Andrew Corrigan travelled to Byron Bay to accept the OCCA. Based in Nambeelup, just inland from Mandurah, C-Wise is a organics recycling specialist that takes in a range of organic waste materials from agriculture, animal rearing, the timber industry and community; then uses smart, low impact technology to transform these into soil carbon products
Half of C-Wise’s products are listed as being Certified Organic inputs. This means that these products can be used in certified organic farm production systems. The list of these certified products includes soil improvers such as Wandalup, Horticulture, Humiclay and Humicarb. Moisture Mulch is a coarse moisture conserving mulch that carries the certification. Described as feeding mulches both Premium and Mushroom Compost are fine textured, soil carbon products that are classified as index 2 maturity composts. This means they have good supplies of plant available nutrients as well as great cooling and moisture retaining characteristics. Turf Perfect is the one organically certified top dressing material for grass.
One of the great benefits to the organic farmer is the consistency of these products as a result of C-Wise’s Quality System Certification under the international ISO9001:2008 accreditation. Not only do these products help plants, including turf, to grow – they carry a pedigree – Australian Organic certification, that supports the farmers claim of being an organic grower.
Further detail of the awards can be found at www.organicweek.net.au and on http://www.facebook.com/nationalorganicweekaustralia
