At two Organic Trade Association-sponsored seminars in Japan in late 2014, more than 100 of that country’s top grocery retail food importers and distributors learned that athletes competing in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will be eating organic. The OTA stated that this is the ambitious plan of Taka Yamaguchi, executive officer of Organic Japan.

Yamaguchi was part of a roster of agricultural, organic and food industry experts and policy officials that took part in the two capacity-filled OTA programs that brought industry and government leaders together in Tokyo and Osaka to learn about the range and quality of U.S. organic products. The meetings were also an attempt for the OTA to “get up to speed” on a bilateral trade deal that will help feed Japan's growing appetite for organic.

With a grant for $784,902 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Market Access Program to promote U.S. organic products abroad in 2015, OTA is gearing up a far-reaching strategy for 2015 that will include more organic promotional and education programs in Japan and around the globe.

“Exports are increasingly important to U.S. producers and handlers,” Laura Batcha, chief executive officer and executive director of the OTA, said in a press release. “The organic industry is invested in building the relationships and U.S. organic brand awareness required for long-term export growth. The industry is poised to fully utilize the much-welcomed grant assistance from USDA provided through its Market Access Program."

OTA will return to Japan in November 2015 where it will conduct targeted promotion of organic products to consumers and continue to build relationships with retailers and visionaries like Yamaguchi.

Beyond Japan, the OTA will also be busy leading a contingent of more than a dozen U.S. organic suppliers attending the BioFach World Organic Trade Fair in Nuremburg, Germany, the world's leading organic food trade show. OTA will showcase U.S. organic products in its large space within the USA Pavilion and will lead a session on the important U.S.-EU organic equivalency arrangement.

In Seoul, South Korea, OTA will participate in the Seoul Food & Beverage show. South Korea and the United States signed an organic equivalency arrangement in July 2014, and demand for organic in the prosperous Asian country has never been higher.

In Cologne, Germany, OTA and representatives of the U.S. organic industry will have a highly visible presence at the preeminent Anuga food show, the largest food show in the world. More than 150,000 buyers from almost 200 countries attend the huge event, making it one of the most critical and potentially profitable shows for the U.S. organic industry to attend.

In Anaheim, CA, at Natural Products Expo West, one of the biggest trade shows in the United States, OTA will bring stateside more than 20 organic food buyers from Asia and Southeast Asia, South America and Central America, Europe and Canada to talk business with U.S. organic suppliers.

In cities across Europe, OTA will be coordinating a large-scale promotion effort, with the focus on retailers to increase the awareness of the range, quality and consistency of U.S. organic products available for import.

A recent OTA survey of the U.S. organic industry shows a growing number of organic stakeholders involved in the export market — just over 60 percent of respondents surveyed last year said they export all or some of their organic products with an additional 20 percent reporting that they plan to get into the international arena.

The press release also stated that demand for organics in the United States has been booming, with sales in 2013 hitting a new record of $35.1 billion. Demand for organic around the world has been exploding as well, and U.S. organic exports in 2013 reached a new high of $537 million, up more than 20 percent from the previous year.