What is ORA?

Organic Retailers Association is the umbrella association of organic retailers worldwide. ORA is the IFOAM Internal Body for Organic Retailer Issues. As organic retailers ORA defines specialized organic food shops, natural and health food shops, organic supermarkets, natural drugstores, organic farm shops and all independent retailers with an explicit organic product focus. Organic retailers prioritise organic products in their assortment decisions and communication policy. Their sales staff have thorough knowledge of organic products and organic farming.

Facts

Headquarter located in Vienna/Austria
Member Countries (2006): Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland
Board Members: Ralph Liebing (Austria): Executive Director, Tom Vaclavik (Czech Rep.): President, Toralf Richter (Switzerland): Vice President, Susan van Osch – Director for Business Development

ORA Mission

To support the Organic Retailers Sector worldwide in order to provide consumers with high quality organic products through highly qualified and committed organic retailers.
To link international organic market development experts and exchange Know-how for the benefit of organic market development.
To build up international networks between actors along supply chains of organic food retailers.
To encourage the development of Independent Organic Retailing Sectors in order to create professional marketing channels for medium & small scale organic farmers & processors for their national and regional products.

ORA Goals

To encourage the development and professionalism of Organic Retailers as an important sales-channel for organic products (e.g. basic business skills such as Qualification-Standards).
To support emerging organic market’s development through establishing Organic Retailer structures.
To collect and represent the interest of national retailer sectors on international level.

Strategies:

Raise awareness for organic retailer issues amongst stakeholders & policy-makers world-wide, Lobbying
Know-how-transfer, Consulting
International ORA Consultancy Network
collect project possibilities (-inter-national, EU)
Dissemination of Know-how
Development of tools & strategies for National Organic Market Action Plans
Collect and disseminate national or regional best practice examples on organic retailers related issues
To develop a code of practice for organic retailers: to gradually develop a system of Organic Retailers Standards concerning qualification, assortment, service, preparation, handling, storage, documentation, labeling, advice and social issues, and encourage actors to implement them.
Promote organic retailer issues within IFOAM structures
Represent global interests of Organic retailers with considerations for local requirements