Food & Drink
Transparent farming
Soil Association Certification’s Paige Tracey sets out the differences between organic and regenerative agriculture.
16 June 2025
This article first appeared in our Organic September 2025 issue of My Green Pod Magazine. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox
Main mage: Organic North’s smaller fruit and veg orders are delivered to local restaurants by cargo bike
In the mid-‘90s, a co-operative of small business owners decided to establish a market for their local organic farmers.
Today Organic North is the go-to supplier of fresh produce and whole foods for over 250 independent businesses in the UK; most of its veg remains local to the Manchester-based wholesaler, though it now delivers weekly as far as Belfast, Inverness and even Jersey.
In homage to Organic North’s growing influence in the organic sector, its long-standing managing director, Sean Ruffell, was recently awarded the Organic Champion prize at The Soil Association’s BOOM (Best of Organic Market) Awards.
Under Sean’s stewardship – and contrary to traditional business practice – Organic North has enjoyed flying under the radar; for most of its history, the customer base has consisted exclusively of indie retailers that discovered the wholesaler by chance, invariably by word of mouth.
‘No one enjoys being cold called’, was the thought.
Now it seems the word is well and truly out. These days, as well as supplying many of the UK’s independent veg-box delivery schemes, Organic North also supplies some of the nation’s finest farm shops, restaurants, bakeries and delis.
Organic North’s steady growth is an anomaly; in addition to the many challenges around keeping any bricks-and-mortar food business solvent, we have also been experiencing high inflation and a cost-of -living crisis.
But when you look at this wholesaler’s underlying principles, it becomes clear why more and more businesses are choosing Organic North as their organic fruit and veg supplier.
These principles are many, but they centre on the company’s mantra of trying to make organic produce as affordable as possible without exploiting anything or anyone.
Organic North never haggles with its growers’ prices and invoices are paid immediately.
The supplier is staunchly loyal to its growers, conscious that it only exists thanks to their heroic work – often in incredibly challenging conditions.
It would be fair to say that the way Organic North trades is the opposite of the ‘race to the bottom’ we so often hear about in supermarket supply chains.
Over 100 farmers and growers, both domestically and across Europe, currently trust Organic North as an outlet for the produce that they grow.
As you’d expect, Organic North also has its eye on the environmental impact of its business model.
It supports local and seasonal growers, never air-freights produce and, perhaps most significantly, has a trading model that ensures it produces zero food waste. This is achieved by trading on a pre-order basis.
Organic North’s customers order on the back of the conservative estimates of harvestable produce provided by their growers, and lines are never speculated or oversold.
By only ordering and receiving what’s required, food waste is removed from this stage of the supply chain.
Organic North also pays all its staff at least the Real Living Wage.
Policies like this are made easier because the company’s co-op directors don’t look to extract money from the business.
Instead, earnings are reinvested in a bid to keep the cost of the organic produce as low as possible.
Over the last seven years, Organic North’s reinvestment has led to the successful development of bespoke, industry-leading software that has significantly improved the efficiency of daily operations and helped to keep the organic produce it wholesales economically competitive.
So competitive that excitingly, in the last year it has supplied its first state schools and community pantries – completely unsubsidised.
With this approach to business, Organic North is proving that organic food could – and should – be more than just the preserve of the privileged.
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