“Bio” products on the Mauritian market.

I came across an article published by week-end scope on “bio” products in Mauritius some time ago. I have to admit that they did a great article especially concerning the main quality of these products: they support sustainable development. Going towards these products is good for the health to some extent and helps your nutrition but cannot replace full meals.

Why is this interesting? Just because they did it in the good way. The article explains that the idea of using “bio” products is to help the Earth produce more and on a longer period than killing all the nutriments in it in one or two goes. The core idea is the Earth and our, especially our kids’, future. This does in no way go in the sense of the big misunderstanding that brought the explosion of “bio” products on the French market.

When “bio” products started taking the hype in France it was not because of the complete dedication of the French population to the Earth. It actually was a huge misinformation. The Danone Group had a product called “Bio” which was a sort of yoghurt with specific chemicals used to regulate intestinal transit. “Bio” by Danone was a new product and the group had a huge aggressive marketing campaign on it, sort of hundreds of tv spots per day and huge posters everywhere. At the end of the day, everybody knew the name “Bio” as “a product good for you heath” and practically forgot “by Danone”.

Then came the real “bio”, the sustainable development one, craze. Some expert said that it was good to eat “bio” products because it was good, and here people forgot “for the Earth”. In the end, people understood this: “Eat ‘bio’ (the Danone product) to be in good health”. Danone’s “Bio” sales just went up and they got a sued by the French government asking them to change the name of their product which was done some short time later.

However, this had had a huge impact on some people who, till today, eat ‘bio’ products solely. Many of them base their choice on the “good for the health” reason only and has nothing to do with sustainable development. The problem is that ‘bio’ products are really expensive, even in Europe. People justify the price they pay as to “healthy” products price. Actually, the price comes from the fact that these goods need more time to cultivate (for most of them at least).

So this is where the WES article is fair. It does explain the main line of conduct to have when going for such goods. Knowing this, one should know that most vegetables and poultry sold in Mauritius by short scale growers and farmers are most of the time “bio” as their use of chemicals is really reduced.