About ORA
ORA Mission
ORA mission is to create and multiply educational know-how for the development of the organic retailers sector in order to create the last link in the organic supply chain and thus guarantee consumers organic identity from farm to fork. .
People at ORA
President: Tom Vaclavik, Czech Republic
Tom is the Principal in the marketing consultancy Green marketing. Green marketing offers services for organic farmers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Green Marketing offers a comprehensive array of services to help companies and organizations to market and promote themselves to their designated audiences. Green marketing collects the most comprehensive marketing information across the entire organic products supply chain. We help clients make accurate and insightful decisions about their businesses.
Executive Director: Ralph Liebing, Austria
Ralph Liebing (58) is, besides Tom Vaclavik, the co-founder of ORA. As Executive Director he built up the Austrian Organic Retailers Association VNOe, was Marketing Manager for Organic Retailing and Farmers Direct Sales within Bio-Austria, the Austrian Organic Farmers Association, and supervised projects for market development in Romania and Ukraine for FiBL, the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture. He currently runs the ORA headquarter in Vienna as Executive Manager: He is responsible for the execution of all EU-projects ORA participates in as well as the outline of new project applications in cooperation with the big international network of ORA. Ralph is connected to the movements of ecology and organic agriculture since the early 80s. He also works as advisor in organic market development and has gained profound insight in the professionalization of supply-chains through his manyfold missions in (inter)national projects. He is a passionate networker and believes in the magic of mutual exchange of experiences and know-how. His lastest project is the publishing of a new consumer magazine for the Austrian Organic Retail Sector. He is a father of 6 children and lives with his family in Vienna.
Vice-president: Toralf Richter, Germany
Toralf works as a consultant in the specialised organic retailer sector for 'bossert & richter AG' in Switzerland. Before Toralf was employed at the Research Institute for Organic Farming (FiBL) in Switzeland for seven years. He got experience there in the organic market related consumer and market research and participated in several European research projects (OMIaRD, EISfOM, QLIF). Apart from the scientific profile Toralf published books on market research results and marketing which are helpful tools for the development of the organic markets in many countries.