ORGANISING AN ORGANIC CHRISTMAS

Our advent calendars tell us that Christmas is getting closer all the time and here at What on Earth we’re rushed off our (slightly frozen) feet, but we’ve decided to take moment to hand on some seasonal shopping tips. We know from experience that organising an organic Christmas usually takes a bit more work than nipping to your local supermarket, so here are a few of our festive favourites.

First up is Garlands Organic, whose shop is set in a pretty place called Pangbourne. But even though the village looks like a real-live Christmas card when the snow falls, we’re not suggesting that you have to head out there in person – you can buy from Garlands' range online, including luxury mincemeat for making your own additive-free pies. Tasty, plus baking is a great way to stop kids from being bored in the long, long Christmas holidays.

If you’ve got a house full of hungry youngsters, we’d recommend stocking up on a few packs of our children’s pizzas for fuss-free lunches. You can order them through another of our top shopping picks, Abel & Cole, who also sell some of our most Christmassy desserts: Chocolate Yule Log Cake and Baked Orange & Vodka Cheesecake. Can’t decide between the two? Have both, that’s what the festive season is all about…

Finally, for anyone who hasn’t had time to even think about buying Christmas gifts yet, fear not: we have the perfect solution. And don’t worry, our bright idea isn’t frozen pizzas for everybody (we tried that one year but they’re quite hard to wrap, and because they’re free from preservatives they didn’t last long under the tree). When we eventually manage to dash away and do some spending, we’ll be heading straight to the new Willow Organic shop in Chelsea to get our hands on some posh pressies. With lovely touchy-feely silk packaging that is biodegradable and recyclable, these beauty products are ideal for eco-conscious other-halves and they get a big festive thumbs-up from us. Enjoy!

WHAT ON EARTH’S OVERSEAS ADVENTURE

The What on Earth team came over all continental this month when we popped across to Paris for SIAL, the international food fair. After beginning our trip at silly o’clock in the morning, our Chief of Buying Stuff thought he was still dreaming when he found himself enjoying a complimentary in-flight sandwich instead of being sold scratchcards – he’s usually more of a budget airline man! But before you think our trip was just an excuse for a luxurious mini-break, we’ll have you know that we went to France on a mission: to seek out the best new organic products for you (hoorah!). Naturally, there was a lot of sampling involved – all in the name of research of course – and we were lucky enough to try caviar, pig’s trotter and Latvian pickled fish, as well as a whole host of coffees, sweets and chocolates. It’s a hard life, but someone’s got to do it! We found some exciting new suppliers and also had a chance to catch up with our existing ones, chinwagging about future projects over a beer and a cheesy biscuit. So good to have so many passionate foodies in one place – with no pesticides or additives to spoil the mood!

PEACE.LOVE.PIZZA HITS WAR AND PEACE

The What on Earth pizza wagon (with the What on Earth Cheesecake side show) is spending the week at the War and Peace show in Paddock wood, Kent (www.thewarandpeaceshow.com). If you have never heard of it, as we hadn't, it is a vast collective of (now obsolete) military might. There are more vintage military vehicle then you could shake a Tommy gun at, next to fields of funny hats and old radios...It is an awesome display of about 120,000 peoples devotion to their hobbies. We thought a little bit of Peace. Love and Pizza wouldn't go amiss!

If you are up for it the show is on until Sunday 25 July and the pizza van is next to the main bar (well where else would it be...?!)

What on Earth at Glastonbury

June came (and went very quickly) which means both Wimbledon and Glastonbury...both normally synonymous with lots of rain and lots of mud! This year our Pizza Wagon set up stall to spread peace, love and pizza at the UK’s largest music festival. We were in the Shangri-La area, an imaginary earthly paradise (according to the dictionary) but actually the finest, wildest display of fabulous crazy designs, stage sets and people. Our organic pizzas and cheesecakes thrilled the throngs of sun drenched revellers. It was the perfect opportunity for our band of renegade (multi cultural) crew to enjoy the sun, fun and music. They also got to explore the amazing world that is the Glastonbury festival; the stages, the extraordinarily diverse foods and plenty of otherworldly sites, including some unbelievable art!
Surprisingly (...or not), our organic cheesecakes rocked! They people were seduced by the beautiful flavours: chocolate, lemon, blueberry and raspberry...all handmade in Somerset and served very cold.....a fabulous antidote to one of the hottest weeks of the year. Our pizza, an old favourite at festivals, were gobbled up by many somewhat wobbly party goers (the van was open very late to aid those in need). For the What on Earth crew it was truly an amazing experience and judging by our sales the same was true for all of the happy punters!

It's a funny old world...I went to France this week to meet a supplier of ours. He's a brilliant man who runs a juice company. All the waste water from his factory is passed through reed beds and piped to his livestock and all the fruit pulp from the juices is dried in the Provencal sun and again given to his livestock. He is as sustainable a business as you could imagine. Sadly, he is also a professor of doom. He is convinced that the world is falling apart. That greed has finally got the better of us and there is no way back..thank you very much you bankers! (his words!). I stood my ground and told him about something I saw just the day before. I explained.... when you think there is no hope...when you edge towards the realisation that we may all be doing our bit but actually we're not really going to achieve anything...YOU'RE WRONG! And boy how wrong you would be.... to doubt that anybody cares about whether or not we turn off our lights (more about that in a minute), or care about how we travel (more about that to, in a minute) or indeed just generally care about the whole global warming issue, is remiss.We had the opportunity to see the future in action. My colleague, Bart and I were invited to be part of a 'program of sustainability' workshop at Quinton Kynaston school in St Johns Wood. Sounds posh, St Johns Wood but actually it is a huge inner city school with an amazing diversity of students and abilities. We were in the presence of some 'Sustainable' luminaries from Price Waterhouse and university students as well as other eco minded businesses. The plan was to mentor a group of 14/15 year old students (10 in a team) who had to devise a sustainable/eco business, give it a name, logo, write a plan and then pitch the idea to a group of judges. A huge ask of any group of people! Once the ear flicking and pen nicking had finished we got down to work.
Ali, thought about eco tourism and the connection to a school in Kenya...Heartfelt and brilliant but expensive to set up and maintain. I suggested collecting metal waste around the school and other schools..just to throw an idea in. Luke said "whenever I walk past the school at night, the lights are all on...No one remembers to turn everything off. Can't we put a switch in each room that will turn off all the lights and standby buttons on the computers?" On one level, not very visionary you might think. Surely it's been done before. I beg to differ. This wastefullness was something that annoyed Luke and this was the forum for him to do something about it. I think this was a genius observation...an instant means of income (by way of savings) for the school, an instant reduction in carbon footprint, an instant step towards sustainability, an instant pat on the back for that man and his idea! But it continued....'we could supply other schools and all those office buildings and all the parents, they'll all want to save money!'. We were definitely on to something. So now we had to think of a name and a logo. Alana sitting quietly (more or less)doodling away and BHAMM! the logo. Just like that, off the top of her head.. and another genius revealed! The 'marketing team' got busy writing their presentation. 'You have a choice to change' was the message 'and one click is all it takes'. The whole team pulled it together....I don't know what the collective term for a group of geniuses is but this was it! We had a very lively, heated and passionate few hours pulling this thing together. Unfortunately, for me, I had to leave at this point and the team prepared themselves for the presentation to the judges.
I came away from that day feeling incredibly uplifted by the experience and by the enthusiasm of the 14 and 15 year olds (who could have not bothered and mucked around instead). And also by their understanding of the need to alter the way in which we consume. I hope all schools do this sort of thing because it is invaluable and brilliant for both the students and for those of us who are busy running businesses and forget that the connection to the future is right behind us. So a big thanks to Hannah and her team and to QK and especially to team 11...'Switch' ... who incidentally won Best Business Champion (up against lots of other brilliant ideas).
I hope they don't mind me putting their names here but I thought a weenie bit of recognition from us could do no harm! Well done chaps...I am brimming with pride!

AND ANOTHER THING........

When we started our organic food business, nearly 12 years ago, people either said we were mad -"nobody will buy organic food all covered in mud and grown by smelly hippies"- or that we were climbing on a bandwagon -"you just want to overcharge people, tell them they're not cool if they don't buy organic food, live in Notting Hill 'Village' or call their children Willow or Skye"-. What we were really trying to do was say we think we can make simple, honest food, bereft of chemical additives and yukiness for a reasonable price. We were never going to compete with a mass market supermarket pizza full of hydrogenated fats and stuff with weird sciencey names, for 7p, so we make all of our foods in small batches, by hand with a healthy degree of care and attention. Those 12 years are now behind us and we must be doing something right 'cos we're still here, winning awards and accolades and selling our pizza for exactly the same price as when we started. Only now we also make other organic lovelinesses including; soup, pasta sauces and some dizzyingly wonderful organic cheesecakes. Have a look at www.whatonearth.co.uk if you want to see some nice pictures of what we do.
And if you want to talk to mad bandwagon hoppers then drop us a line hello@whatonearth.co.uk .

Saving the planet ...one pizza at a time

It's always nice to see people making an effort to get their own personal attempt to save the planet noticed. A fine example is a chap, Mark Boyle, from Bristol, living without cash for a year, in a caravan. He is living on grown, foraged or scrap food, working as a volunteer and generally being a jolly nice chap. This is lovely and very commendable (if that's the way you want to go) though some commentators have raised the comparison to the life travellers/gypsies have lead for centuries. So, I guess the big question is ; what should one do and how should one do it? We as individuals can all try and do our bit with recycling, turning off the TV at night, shorten your showering time etc etc but it just feels so sad when corporate world does not join in with equal gusto. There is the argument that China has turned itself into one massive coal burning furnace, with smog so dense that people need to constantly squint to see where they are going. So what is the point in only boiling one cup of water at a time when all of your good work is being effectively negated elsewhere. We can only believe that the 'force of one' will become the 'force of many', so long as the message to do your bit gets passed on by like minded and willing folk. At What on Earth we feel that we are doing our bit by making organic food and running an 'eco as realistically possible' business...Please do your bit and let us know if we can help (hello@whatonearth.co.uk)
Also, next time you're in a supermarket.....have a word (see link below)!http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/oct/01/greenwash-supermarkets-fridges

SNOW, SUN AND STUFF.....

Wow, what a bizarre bit of weather that was! Our team of jolly drivers managed to fight their way through snow drifts and freezing temperatures to make sure that our customers got their orders. So now the snow is on the melt we can start the new year in earnest. We had a nice busy year last year and have some great new projects on the go for this year including some new desserts... (more about that as it happens!). The desire for good quality food seems to be unashamedly bashing this recession on the head!
Apparently our beautiful organic cheesecakes are also getting noticed further afield. We are off to Dubai to show a potential distributor our range of award winning frozen organic pizzas and organic cheesecakes. We are very excited about going and hope to get in a bit of sand surfing or maybe a bit of base jumping from that new big building.
Nearer home, selling our stuff online direct to our public has always been a bit of a struggle as we make so many different products...well the answer is now with us. Starting with pizza (soon to be joined by kiddies pizza and cakes) you can get them from www.goodnessdirect.co.uk and if you're quick you might even win some freebies!
Well, here's to a great year to you all and we at What on Earth hope that all your New Years resolutions are still intact and we promise to keep at least one of ours going....to blog more!