Highlights from world organic fair Biofach

This weekend we headed off to Germany to visit Biofach, the world's biggest organic fair, and were completely thrown by the scale of it. Never before had we seen so many organic products in one place. There were 2,740 exhibitors from literally all over the world and most of them had more than one product to show off.

One of our favourites among the many great Fairtrade, organic or natural products, was the Natessance's Fairtrade Sweet'Coton night serum made with Fairtrade cotton oil, sesame oil and cocoa. Another product that made a big impression on us was the i+m Naturkosmetik's Freistil hand cream. We were lured to it by its fab design, but as it turns out it's a brilliant, natural product with organic and fair trade ingredients that's so pure it can be used by anyone -- even those with bad allergies.

The body care exhibitors shared this year's limelight with 336 organic wine companies from 21 different countries. We realised then and there that our struggle to find good organic wine in the shops definitely doesn't have anything to do with the potential supply of it. Our favourite red was the biodynamic Novas Syrah-Mourvedre 2005 from Chile, which was heavy and quite spicy. The best white wine in our opinion was the Austrian Grüner Veltliner von den Rieden 2006, which also won a gold medal in the International Organic Wine Awards at Biofach.

Next year, Germany will have to move over and let Denmark, crowned Organic Country of the Year 2009 on the first day of this year's Biofach, enjoy the attention. Looking at the many impressive stands and the fancy kitchen the Danish section boasted this year, we look forward to it taking centre stage next year.

Another interesting aspect of Biofach was the Olive Oil Award, where visitors could all vote for our faves out of around 150 different organic olive oils on display. Again, the lack of a good variety of organic olive oils in our shops clearly isn't because there are none on the market.

It was impossible to try every single food product there due the overwhelming amount. But among the ones we tried that stood out were the Original Gerber Biscuits, which are wholemeal biscuits with all sorts of yummy ingredients -- we particularly liked the ones with chocolate and orange. British newcomer Spice Tree also excited us with a variety of tasty chutneys and other organic Indian specialities.

And oh, fans of Gérard Depardieu might be excited to hear that he's also an organic foodie and gave his support to Biofach by opening the fair.

All in all, visiting Biofach was an overwhelming but fantastic experience. It opened our eyes to a whole new world of organic products -- literally. Whether it be scrummy organic berries from Romania, a lovely organic body-butter from Israel or single estate gourmet, organic and Fairtrade tea from Zimbabwe, they were all there.

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