As a leading challenger brand, we are now often asked about our organic credentials and views.

A favourite is: “Why do consumers believe in organic with babyfood, where 47% of the market is organic and growing, yet in the wider world penetration it’s just 2% and falling?”.

There is no simple answer. Ella’s Kitchen is 100% organic because our consumers demand it. But the organic movement is a very broad church. Too broad to unite on concise views over how to advance.

And I was struck, at last year’s Soil Association conference, by the diversity of the delegates. United by passion, but divided by sometimes contradictory focuses and angles. I realised we have numerous accreditors, little alignment with the Fairtrade and free range movements, and a manifesto that has tried to be too much to too many.

However, the Soil Association has recently come ‘under new management’, and I have been impressed by Helen Browning’s outreach. I welcome next month’s introduction of her simplified and radical The Good Food for All programme, based on sharing basic organic principles.

It’s not before time. The organic movement has never had a clear message: a single, simple, succinct statement as to why organic is best. This confuses consumers who, for example, understand the simplicity of ‘free range’ or ‘locally sourced’. The issue is epitomised in the Organic Trade Board’s ongoing ‘I Love Organic’ marketing campaign.

The OTB successfully procured £2m of European public funding to find matched funding and promote organic via a three-year public campaign. Fantastic if the message is there. As enthusiastic members of the OTB, we were asked to contribute funds. We declined, because there wasn’t one campaign message, but six core messages. I challenge the OTB to show that the campaign is fulfilling its goals. I doubt it, but advertising can work for organic, if the message is consistent and understandable: ask Yeo Valley.

In many categories, the price differential to conventional is just too much for most consumers, especially in a recession. The whole supply chain needs to work out the optimal economics, and accreditors need to reconsider fee structures, which can feel like an organic tax.

I see that most people who occasionally buy organic do so on instinct. Some identify with the positives: they believe it tastes better, or has more nutrition, or that animals have been better treated. Others buy for the absence of negatives: no pesticides, no contaminated water for communities, no erosion of the world’s topsoil layer.

For all, however, it ‘feels’ best, and gut feel is a powerful driver of purchasing decisions and it’s the answer to the babyfood organic share question. The problem is that ‘Brand Organic’ fails to convert occasional purchasers into regular ones. In fact, it doesn’t yet really exist.

So can organic significantly grow? With the optimism of Organic September, and with our own extraordinary growth, I believe it can but only if the different bodies unite, and a concise message helps justify a (declining) price premium.

Organic is mainly about heritage it’s the way we’ve farmed for centuries. It’s sustainable for the land, livestock and people, and we tinker with its natural balance at our peril. Is that so hard to understand?

Paul Lindley is founder and CEO of Ella’s Kitchen