Organic chemistry
Maria Clancy and John Kavaliauskas like to see themselves as the Anita and Gordon Roddick of organic catering. The couple, co-founders of London event caterer Organic Express, have some way to go to match the Body Shop founders' wealth (about £35m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List), but then, as Kavaliauskas says: "If you went into catering to make money, you wouldn't start by going 100% organic."
That's what Clancy and Kavaliauskas did when they set up Organic Express two years ago, claiming to be the first fully organic caterer in the capital. It is certainly one of only a handful nationwide to have accepted the cost and complication of organic certification - a legal requirement for anyone claiming to major on organics, but one that many caterers quietly ignore.
Sales of organic food in the UK are worth about £1b, according to the Soil Association, and it is the fastest-growing grocery sector. But only 1% of organic food companies bearing the association's logo are caterers.
Clancy and Kavaliauskas have impeccable green credentials. Both were converts to organic cuisine long before it became fashionable. Both travelled the world and came back committed to fair trade, sustainable development and environmental protection. As a mature student Kavaliauskas took a degree in environmental science and went on to study solar energy in Nicaragua, thanks to a Millennium Commission award. Clancy took a masters degree in fair trade and development and worked for the Big Issue Foundation in London and South Africa.
When the pair set up Organic Express two years ago they, like the Roddicks, put the "triple bottom line" - financial, social and environmental - at the heart of their business. And when, towards the end of 2002, they needed extra capital to take the business to its next stage, it was their green gods, Anita and Gordon Roddick, who took a minority shareholding.
"The Body Shop had been one of our first customers, so we'd already made presentations to the Roddicks and the other board directors," says Kavaliauskas. "Maria had been inspired by Anita and Gordon's work, and they knew we wanted to move the business on to another level."
This year, with the Roddicks as their mentors, Clancy and Kavaliauskas expect sales to reach about £250,000. Not huge, but two years ago Organic Express didn't even have its own kitchens, so "as a start-up we're doing very well - and we're doing well from doing good".
The business developed out of Clancy's contacts with the Social Venture Network (SVN), a global umbrella group for "socially and environmentally engaged entrepreneurs" like the Body Shop, the Big Issue and Ben & Jerry's.
Clancy and Kavaliauskas offered to cater for the group's London networking meetings, using Fairtrade ingredients to create organic dishes, prepared at the venue and presented with flair. They also guaranteed to recycle all the packaging afterwards, in line with the SVN's ethics.
"The people from SVN knew us and knew how passionate we were about their principles," says Kavaliauskas. "So it wasn't a hard sell. And once we became, in effect, their official caterers, that gave us a springboard to start searching for our own kitchens."
The pair took on premises in Battersea, and recruited Carolyn Robb as executive chef. A product of the Tante Marie chef school, Robb had already enjoyed a long association with organic food and had been a consultant food developer for Duchy Originals, the Prince of Wales's organic food label. She is also a panel member for the Soil Association's Organic Food Awards.
Along with support worker Emily Corran and the two founders, Robb is one of just four full-time staff. "Carolyn is the organic chef who ensures the integrity of all we do," says Kavaliauskas. "She's aware of what's needed to meet the Soil Association standards, and she's at the core of our recipe development."
Other freelance chefs provide a mix of creative and operational skills. Antonia Cable, for example, has been given free rein to use her presentational flair. "She'll use things like red flower heads against banana leaves on an earthen slate, so you feel there's a real connection with the earth," says Kavaliauskas. "It all enhances what we do: this whole reconnection of food and agriculture."
Many of Organic Express's freelance waiting staff are university students with an interest in environmental science. Similarly, "most of our chefs believe in what we do, too, so they tend to gravitate towards us".
The company's early sales came from contacts in the social and environmental sector: companies that were "already half-committed anyway" to what Organic Express stood for. It has catered for UN Environment and Development UK, Human Rights Watch, Solar Century, SustainAbility and the Peabody Trust among others, and venues have included London's Banqueting House and the Fashion and Textile Museum.
The company aims to compete on an equal footing with conventional caterers in terms of food quality, service and presentation and is edging out to serve mainstream clients that are looking for something a bit different. Publicity is also growing as the media latch on to the company's two charismatic founders, and a feature in the Guardian in mid-September has, for the first time, brought clients knocking on their door.
At Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London, which used Organic Express for the first time this month, events and marketing executive Isabel Crane says she wasn't particularly looking for an organic specialist when she first spoke to Clancy. Organic Express "sponsored" the food and drink at an event for international supporters (sponsoring is the quickest route on to the gallery's list of approved caterers), and the result was "extremely good". "The service was excellent, the food was delicious and the team were very knowledgeable about the nature of the food and where it came from," says Crane.
Kavaliauskas and Clancy always look for opportunities to spread the word about organic food through information displays at events - if the client will allow it. At Dulwich Picture Gallery there were leaflets available, but Crane says: "The staff weren't wearing Organic Express-branded uniforms, and the organic message certainly wasn't stuffed down your throat.
"But Maria is very enthusiastic. She makes you want to eat organic food, not by scaring you, but in a ‘my body is a temple' kind of way."
Clancy, a 34-year-old fast-talking and fired-up Irishwoman, is the public relations front for Organic Express as well as its sales chief, and her vocabulary echoes that of her mentor, Anita Roddick. Words like "passion" and "energy" abound.
Her partner, Kavaliauskas, a young-looking 49-year-old with a towering 6ft 5in frame, is quieter, although he's not averse to the odd clich‚: "The core ingredients are passion, principles and presentation. And we make profit the fourth principle." He retains his special interest in environmental science and, in the business, focuses on supply-chain issues, food miles and "working out what's the next thing in organics".
With Robb's experience of working with organic produce, Kavaliauskas says year-round sourcing of ingredients is not a problem. It's harder, he believes, for caterers that are trying to offer organics alongside conventional foods, creating issues of product segregation plus vastly more paperwork. He now leaves Soil Association accreditation largely in the hands of Robb and Corran, and has moved on to looking at wider social and environmental issues, such as ensuring the business is carbon-neutral. Its contribution to carbon pollution is calculated annually and cancelled out by payments to a renewable energy project in Eritrea via the Future Forests scheme.
The company aims to buy local where possible - although what constitutes "local" for a London-based caterer is a moot point. It could be a Kent farmer; it could be a nearby specialist wholesaler. Clients are also encouraged to try UK wines and are offered European ahead of New World varieties to reduce food miles.
It's all very worthy, but do customers really care? Kavaliauskas says informal research suggests taste and quality are still what matters most - but the word "organic" does have an instant effect on some clients, immediately putting Organic Express into a different league. "The message is about clear, transparent added value through social and environmental responsibility," he says. But he adds: "At some events it's not an issue. There's no agenda. We are virtually mainstream catering."
Jo Fox is event manager for London venture capitalist Catalyst Fund Management, another Organic Express client. For her, taking the organic route is partly about breaking away from "the same old canapés".
"I organise many, many events and I'm always looking for something a bit different. And social businesses appeal to me, so I'd rather use someone like Organic Express. It's not just bog-standard plate-and-napkin stuff. It creates a talking point."
Price - which is often seen as an obstacle in organics - doesn't come into it for Fox. "I'd never scrimp on an event, because it shows. But I have to say Organic are very competitive. They'll match any other company."
But Kavaliauskas is clearly frustrated by the price perception that dogs the organic sector. He and Clancy have even considered saying to clients: "Make us an offer you think is fair," since the expectation is usually higher than the reality.
The typical premium is "as low as 10%", he says. "On some items, like wine, it's negligible, and on others we are, if anything, too reasonable. It's just a mind-set people have. And yet we have lots of clients who haven't flinched. They're not even interested in talking about price."
Catalyst Fund Management has used Organic Express twice - once for a corporate function and once for the launch of a social investment fund where "it made complete sense to have an organic catering supplier". But Fox doesn't see the company as a niche supplier. "We'd go back to them again and again, simply because they're something different. They're quite exceptional. Caterers are 10-a-penny in London, aren't they?"
All or nothing
Regulations designed to stop consumers being conned over organics are holding back growth in the catering sector, some specialists believe.
Since 1991, European law has required anyone selling organic food to register and undergo regular inspections. In the UK, growers, processors and importers must be approved by a recognised organic-certification body such as the Soil Association.
The rules apply to any foods prepared out of the sight of the customer and sold to the general public. This includes restaurant meals. But, according to Simon Wright of the Organic Consultancy, the rules were designed for farmers and factories. "No one ever thought about how they would apply to caterers, pubs or deli counters."
The difficulty of providing a strict paper trail for constantly changing ingredients and menus mean some restaurateurs have simply pulled out of organics. Others, who list a handful of organic items such as "organic local lamb", simply ignore the rules. According to Wright, trading standards departments say restaurants are a long way down their list of priorities. But any restaurateur setting out to major in organics could come unstuck, particularly if they want to advertise the fact, since the Advertising Standards Authority, encouraged by the Food Standards Agency, takes a dim view of unsubstantiated food claims.
"Consumers don't want to be ripped off," accepts Wright. "On the other hand, the regulations are stifling growth."
The Soil Association - the UK's best-known accreditation body - is, if anything, pushing for a firmer line on unregulated use of the term "organic".
In June it launched a new set of organic standards for caterers, which had been in development since 2001. The Ritz, Pizza Piazza and organic pub operator Singhboulton are among the first takers.
The Soil Association claims accreditation offers legal peace of mind and a means of winning the trust of sceptical consumers. But some big-name restaurateurs - notably Antonio Carluccio and Antony Worrall Thompson - have slated this all-or-nothing approach, saying it's too restrictive.
According to Wright, the Soil Association's catering standards committee tends to be dominated by 100% organic operators. It therefore misses the gap for caterers seeking to offer a proportion of genuinely organic foods alongside their conventional offer - especially since some organic ingredients offer superior taste and quality as well as the less-easy-to-prove health benefits.
At Organic Express, Clancy refuses to engage in a debate with the likes of Worrall Thompson. "What other people do is entirely up to them. But we would support what the Soil Association is doing, and what they stand for."
Contacts
Organic Express
020 7277 6147
www.organic-express.com
The Soil Association
0117 929 0661
www.soilassociation.org
