Testing Experts Discuss Organic Trends for 2024

We spoke with a handful of individuals who are deeply involved in the world of food testing and asked them about their thoughts on organic in the year ahead.

Here is what they had to say.

Colleen Kavanagh, founder and CEO of ZEGO Foods, an organic brand that has been testing its products for more than 500 different types of pesticides, heavy metals and allergens for many years. All of its test results are posted on the company’s website and linked to every product’s QR code.

Organic brands, which conduct extensive product testing for pesticides, heavy metals and other toxins, encounter notable challenges.

Consumers may struggle to understand why these brands are priced higher than standard organic products, but what they do not realize is that USDA organic certification is mostly a paper trail with little testing and it doesn’t cover heavy metals at all. And, of course, this additional purity testing, which goes beyond standard USDA organic certification, is expensive, time-consuming and risky.

The good news is that 2024 is the start of a paradigm change.