You buy and eat organic. With friends and family you celebrate the positive impact that your organic food choices make. Join us as we dive into organic during Canada’s 14th annual Organic Week celebrations, September 12-18th. Whether you are a seasoned organic sector specialist or dabbling in organic for the first time, Organic Week has something for you all!
Canada Organic Trade Association (COTA) with supporting partner Canadian Organic Growers (COG) are excited to welcome your participation in our national campaign for Organic Week. Explore all activities on www.organicweek.ca and https://semainebio.ca
Participate in educational, informative and inspirational webinars await your registration through Eventbrite.
Webinar presentation topics include:
-Regenerating Organic panel discussion
-Organic by the Numbers
-Organic: Waste Not Want Not cooking classes by celebrity chef
-What Makes Organic, Organic?
-Organic Campus
-Workin' It for Organic: Exploring the Organic Labour Market
-Perspectives of New Entrant Farmers
-Why Choose Organic to Impact Your Health
-Organic Gardening Tips by Mark and Ben Cullen
Five fun national contests include two amazing grand prizes offering organic groceries for a month as well as amazing organic gift baskets for the lucky winners. Learn more about these engaging and educational contests here.
Download the free self-serve Organic Week digital marketing toolkit for your use and customization. You may access the tools on either DropBox or GoogleDrive. Included is the social media calendar for the month of September for your reference and to know when we will be posting and promoting!
Follow us on:
Instagram: choosecanadaorganic
Facebook: @choosecanadaorganic
Follow, like, tag, and share:
#organicweek2022
#semainebio2022
For Retailers: order your free in-store Organic Week POS kit which includes the grand prize contest QR code, educational messaging on shelf danglers, produce sticks, and more.Order POS kits through your participating natural foods distributor or directly from COTA.
Industry partners, let us know when you create your own unique programming and in-store and community activations.
Reach out for more info at info@organicweek.ca
When we choose organic, we enjoy the delicious rewards of an organic lifestyle. We have a stubborn and well-founded optimism that organic makes the world a better place for all life. It is with a sense of courage and collaboration that we face the harsh realities of a warming planet, disrupted weather patterns, loss of soil vitality and increasing loss of species biodiversity across the globe. We know there has never been a more important time for organic.
That’s why we work hard every day to present the organic choice to more consumers and businesses, for their homes and as a strategic business option. That’s what Organic Week is all about. It’s a special time of year to focus in on organic, so that together we will make every week an organic week.
Food retailers from across Canada will be displaying organic point-of-sale materials in their stores during Organic Week. Any retailer can order POS kits directly from COTA by emailing info@organicweek.ca. Sincere thanks to our sponsors [see below] who helped fund the printing of these free-to-retail in-store materials and a special thanks to our wholesale partners who helped distribute these kits. The kit includes shelf danglers, produce sticks, posters, window clings, staff stickers and the retail contest ballots (for the retail contest that is exclusively being offered to our retailer partners). Eye-catching graphics and messaging engage shoppers with the aim of adding more organic to their shopping baskets.
Organic Week Contests
The five Organic Week contests are promoted through consumer-facing social media all month long. On September 1, the five contests go live.
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Retail Contest! An in-store QR code displayed on Organic Week POS kit materials is scanned by shoppers at participating retail stores to enter to win a grand prize of organic groceries for a month. Exclusively available at retail outlets!
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Photo Contest! Participants submit a photo representing their organic story and are entered to win a grand prize of organic groceries for a month.
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Organic Trivia Contest! Participants test their knowledge of organic and are entered to win an organic gift basket.
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Caption That Contest! Participants provide a caption idea to match an organic image. Most likes will win an organic gift basket.
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Guess The Number Contest! Participants guess the number of organic objects and are entered to win an organic gift basket.
Webinars
Organic Week live and pre-recorded webinars are free and require registration through Eventbrite.
Opening Day, Monday, September 12:
11:00 a.m. EDT Keynote Panel: Regenerating Organic:
Join for our kick off webinar for Organic Week! This interactive panel will be delving into the diverse perspectives of organic sector leaders on the topic of regenerative organic. Panelists include: Henry’s Tempeh, The Big Carrot, and an organic farmer. Moderated by COTA, this session explores the business challenges and rewards of doing business organically. Question & Answer period will follow. Moderated by COTA's Kim DeLallo, Membership and Business Development Manager.
2:00 p.m. EDT Organic by the Numbers: Are you ready to hear the most up to date organic agriculture and trade statistics to help your business thrive? Join the live presentation where COTA’s Executive Director, Tia Loftsgard, will reveal Canada's most up to date 2021 organic production, operator and sales data.
7:00 p.m. EDT Organic: Waste Not Want Not: Join celebrity chef, Harriet Clunie, to discover how to make your money go further by learning how to prevent waste by making creative dishes out of your organic produce and leftovers.
Tuesday, September 13:
11:00 a.m. EDT What Makes Organic, Organic?: Join Roxanne Beavers of Quality Assurance International to learn more about the ins and outs of what it takes to gain organic certification. She will outline what really goes on at an organic inspection, delve into the international trade of organic food, showcase how to be an organic product “label detective” and learn about how to certify organic non-food products, like cosmetics, natural health products and pet food.
Wednesday, September 14
11:00 a.m. EDT Organic Campus: Acadia University: Learn from Acadia University about their momentous designation as Canada’s first Organic Campus and how you can get your college, university, and/or Cegep involved in this innovative program.
Thursday, September 15
11:00 a.m. EDT Workin’ It for Organic: Exploring the Organic Labour Market: Join Tia Loftsgard of Canada Organic Trade Association and Carolyn Young of Organic Council of Ontario to explore the current labour realities for organic agriculture in Canada. We will do a deep dive into the organic labour project being conducted in Ontario.
2:00 p.m. EDT Perspectives of New Entrant Organic Farmers. Join us for this lively panel discussion to hear the insights and perspectives of organic farmers who recently transitioned their practises to organic. Participants on the panel have recently participated in COTA's Organic Transition Program and/or COG's eastern Ontario organic extension program.
7:00 p.m. EDT Why Choose Organic to Impact Your Health and Wellbeing?: Join Alexander Arthur, R.H.N., Canadian School of Natural Nutrition Instructor, to explore the importance of how your food choices impact the environment and why we should be choosing organic. A brief overview will be provided on the benefits of biodiversity, microbiome in soil and in humans, and how food choice equals power.
Friday, September 16
7:00 p.m. EDT Movie Night: Modified: Modified follows a very personal and poignant mother-daughter journey into the world of GMOs. Filmed over 10 years and anchored in the filmmaker’s relationship to her mother (a gardener and food activist who battled cancer during the film’s production), the film asks why GMOs are not labeled on foods in the United States and Canada, despite being labeled in 64 countries around the world.The film has been featured at over 70 international film festivals and received 15 awards since its release, including the prestigious 2019 James Beard Award for Best Documentary Film. World-renowned chef Jacques Pépin calls it "an enlightening and powerful documentary!"
Saturday, September 17
Join the Canada Organic Trade Association (COTA) team on Facebook and Instagram LIVE as we tour Canada’s largest organic and natural health trade show, CHFA NOW Toronto, cruising new organic brand innovations and cool new organic companies!
Closing Day, Sunday, September 18
2:00 p.m. Organic Gardening Tips and Tricks by Mark and Ben Cullen: Join this informative workshop on how to garden in any environment from the experts, father son combo, Mark and Ben Cullen. Cullen is a best-selling author, with 18 books on gardening to his credit. He is also the feature writer for Home at Home Magazine and writes a weekly blog for Yahoo.ca. Cullen actively maintains his website, www.markcullen.com, where he has answered over 10,000 questions from gardeners across the country. We look forward to this exciting presentation!
Organic stories through social media, billboards, earned media, and regional publications increase consumer awareness of organic and grow public trust which is our end goal with Organic Week.
Print media includes targeted ads in magazines such as Alive, Canada Food & Drink, Grocery Business and Vitalité. The Globe & Mail will do a Report on Business feature during Organic Week organic will be presented on two large digital billboards in Toronto at Dundas Square and along the Gardiner Expressway.
Stay tuned for updates on events and more. Be sure to keep an eye on the Organic Week website, organicweek.ca and semainbio.ca for more blogs, action and fun!
For more info about Organic Week, please contact us at info@organicweek.ca
Thank you to our generous sponsors!
About the Author:
The Canada Organic Trade Association (COTA) is the membership-based association for organic agriculture and products in Canada. Our members include growers, shippers, processors, certifiers, farmers’ associations, distributors, importers, exporters, consultants, retailers and all points along the organic value chain.
Contact our team for more information about Organic Week here.
For more information about COTA check out our website here.
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