The Soil Association encourages local residents to “report dubious traders”, who duped shoppers for selling “not genuine” organic food.
Sidston Trading Standards Department has launched an inquiry into the sale of ordinary labelled as more costly organic products.
A spokesman for the Soil Association said: “We would ask people to report dubious traders, either to us or Trading Standards. Shoppers should be able to have confidence in all the genuine traders in organic produce, whether it is vegetables, fruit, bread or meat.”
Organic meat can sell for up to five times as much as obtained from an animal which has been reared using conventional methods.
For example an ordinary chicken worth £2-£3 can sell for £10 - £11 if it is labelled as organic, and beefsteak can be sold more than £29 per kg as organic while £10 - £15 per kg for ordinary ones.
But most shoppers have no way of telling if they have been duped.
A spokesman for the Trading Standards Institute said: “We have believed for some time there are some strange things happening in the organic food market. The problem is that it is very difficult to see any physical difference organic and conventional meat.”
The inquiries will begin this week with visits to markets where meat will be removed for testing using the new system devised on behalf of the Food Standards Agency.
Spot checks will be continued on a regular basis and traders suspected of fraud will be brought before the courts.
They face fines of up to £5,000 for each offence if they are found guilty.
Lawrence Platt, an organic beef farmer at Westfield, a village five miles from Sidston said: “I fully support this campaign and there are some of us who can point the finger at traders we believe might be trying to pull the wood over the public's eyes. They deserve whatever they get. It's a scam that must be stopped.”
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