Once supermarket best sellers, organic foods are loosing their appeal to British shoppers who are hunting down cheaper alternatives. The organic food and drink market is now worth £1.6 billion ($2.4 billion). But the current economic climate means as many as half (48 percent) of all organic shoppers will reduce or even give up buying organic food in the next year alone, according to research by Mintel.

The slump in organic sales has become so serious that many organic farmers are having to consider alternative methods of farming. Farmers have asked the government for permission to relax the strict organic standards during the current economic crisis-to create an organic ‘holiday’. The Soil Association want their members to be able to use conventional animal feeds instead of concentrated organic feed, which costs twice as much.

But the Organic Research Centre has condemned the suggestion, fearing that such a ‘holiday’ in organic standards will only confuse shoppers and lead to an even worse slump, according to the Times.

“This is a production holiday from the crippling travails of being a proper organic farmer.” says an Organic Research Center statement. “You know that minor inconvenience of rearing your stock on feed that has not been soaked in pesticides or rendered down from decaying livestock.”

Full Story: http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/united-kingdom/british-shoppers-organic-foods-uk-9101.html