The Organic Trade Board has secured a £1.7m loan from Triodos Bank to support the continuation of its Feed Your Happy marketing campaign.
The agreement with the bank, which prides itself on its ethical and sustainable approach to finance, underwrites the OTB’s contribution to a €10.2m (£9m) EU fund secured in January last year to deliver the three-year marketing campaign.
“Without Triodos Bank we would not have been able to move forward with this campaign,” said OTB chairman Adrian Blackshaw.
“Their flexibility and innovation was critical in helping us meet EU requirements for funding. Banking can be difficult for organisations seeking to raise finance like this, but Triodos understands the sector and brought great financial insight. We are delighted that Triodos, an OTB member, is assisting us in delivering this important campaign.”
The Feed Your Happy campaign aims to boost the UK organic market by 5% each year until 2020. The OTB launched its campaign to coincide with the beginning of Organic September 2017, with advertising on trains, billboards, in stores and via celebrity ambassadors including Radio 2 DJ Sara Cox and chef Rosie Birkett.
While the EU is funding 80% of the campaign, the remainder was funded by 60 OTB member companies, which account for 70% of the UK organic market, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Omsco, Doves Farm Foods and Rachel’s.
Simon Crichton, food farming and trade team manager at Triodos Bank, added: “With the development of an environmentally focused government agricultural policy, now is the time to support an expansion of organic farming in the UK to meet the challenges now being recognised by government.”
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