While the IFOAM EU Congress last week in Talinn focused on the Organic Vision and launched a Roadmap to Sustainable Food and Farming Systems in Europe, the participants of the AFI Conference in Odessa next week will tackle the topic of “Improving Integrity of Organic Supply Chains”.

Gerald A. Herrmann is traveling to Odessa via Baltimore, USA, however, where he will visit Expo East (September 14th – 16th). On his agenda for the Trade Show is also a meeting of the Organic Trade Association’s anti-fraud task force. This Global Organic Supply Chain Integrity Task Force was put into place after fraudulent imports to the US occurred earlier this year, and Gerald A. Herrmann was glad to join as a member. The task force aims to develop a Best Practice Guide to use in managing and verifying global organic supply chain integrity to help brands and traders manage and mitigate the risk and occurrence of food fraud. The task force meeting during the Expo East Trade Show will be the first in-person meeting following several in-depth phone discussions, and first results from the Best Practice Guide will be discussed.

We look forward to comparing and connecting the discourse taking place in Baltimore and Talinn and will provide more updates going forward. Please also meet us at the following events: Natural Cosmetics Conference (September 26th-27th) and 19th Organic World Congress (November 9th-11th).