On Friday I made a very modest contribution to the proceedings of the Organic and Green trade show in Sydney. A bunch of committed, passionate people, working their collective butts off to build businesses that deliver on the organic promise to consumers.

The numbers however are daunting.

The Australian grocery trade is north of $106 Billion, the organic market, counting everything, (perhaps twice) with the most optimistic assumptions is $500 mill, including all the cosmetics, soaps, candles, recyclable bags, et al, many not included in the grocery figures, and probably constitutes 50% of the total. In other words, perhaps 1 in every 5,000 dollars spent in Australia on food is spent on organic food. How do you win in that arena?

Answer, one person at a time building a tribe, connecting them, giving them a reason to connect with others, supporting the ways they can connect, and working 20 years to be an overnight success.

Organic products are at what I believe to be a unique point in time, the confluence of two great social impacts.

The first is the tools to connect being given to us by the web 2.0. 

The second is the sudden realisation that food matters more than as just fuel, that there is a powerful social and familial force present when you prepare and share good food, on top of the obvious benefits of the impact of healthy food on the individuals health.

Had you told me 3 years ago that a TV reality show would contribute to a major change in behavior, I would have told you to stop smoking illegal stuff,  but perhaps the change was lurking, and Masterchef just provided the catalyst.