Organic Restaurants
How do I ensure what I order in a restaurant is organic?
Firstly, the whole restaurant can be certified. So that would mean that absolutely everything that the restaurant produced was organically certified. So there's that option. The other option is that on a menu they might serve lots of different things and then they'll have a couple of dishes that's served with organic meat or mince--they'll serve it with organic mince. You can check that it's actually is organic by asking the restaurant. Firstly, you can ask to see the certificate. Or secondly, you could ask them to prove that this really is organic mince so you could ask to see their records to see actually their sales or invoice records to show that they bought it from an organic farm. That's the other.
Who ensures that restaurants who claim to use organic produce aren't lying?
Trading Standards would check that restaurants claiming to be organic are not lying. If the restaurant was already certified as organic, then they are subjected to their usual annual inspection, so we would check. If the restaurant was certified as organic with the Soil Association, we would check. But if they weren't certified but they were selling some meals as organic, then Trading Standards could check that as well.
