Business offers invitation to put organic to the test

The owners of a Queenstown business are putting their money where their mouths are, to dispel the perception that organic produce is more expensive than non-organic.

Destination Organic owners Stu Burt and Lyn Williamson are putting up $2000 to test their theory that eating and shopping organically is no more expensive than non-organic, and better for you.

And they want to give people the chance to see for themselves why they think eating organically is so good.

After switching to eating organically a few years ago after his wife got cancer, Mr Burt maintained the change changed his life.

"I did this [open Destination Organic] because I couldn't buy decent organic products on a regular basis in Central Otago.

"We all get stressed but we don't think about the stress we put on our bodies by all this stuff in our bodies."

Recent research showed more than a third all cancers were caused by food people ate, he said.

"I've been organic as much as possible for three years and I haven't had a day off sick. Before that every winter you'd guarantee I'd get some sort of bad flu."

Mrs Williamson said eating organically gave people the best guarantee of having food that was not overloaded with pesticides and chemicals and was full of valuable antioxidants. Eating organically also meant eating seasonally, with a balance of year-round qualities in the produce, she added.

"Basically, you're eating what your granny did."

But the pair said they wanted Queenstown people to have a chance to judge the benefits for themselves, which is why they have come up with their novel idea of winning a month's worth of organic shopping.

They want to find two families to be an organic test case.

They will track their shopping for four weeks, keeping note of their expenditure, and will then subsidise their shopping at Destination Organic by $150 a week for four weeks, to make a comparison between the costs and benefits of both organic and non-organic products.