Bio Eco Actual: monthly, independent and free

Until a few years ago there was no monthly publication free of charge reporting on ecology as a way of life and in particular on the consumption of organic food. At that time – December 2012 – the film La Barbacoa (barbecue) was premiered in all commercial cinemas in Madrid and Barcelona. I was the director and producer of that film. It denounces the excessive consumption of meat in modern society and it was not my intention that my contribution would be reduced to the propagation of organic food and animal protection.
 

In January 2013, I asked Pedro Burruezo for advice. He is a musician and journalist specialising in ecology, the managing director of the magazine The Ecologist Spain and also a member of the association Vida Sana and the trade fair Biocultura. I told him that I intended to produce a monthly independent and free publication about consumption and organic production. As a journalist and friend, he confirmed that this was a good idea but that there had already been several attempts to launch similar publications and none had survived. I valued his opinion and took him seriously when he said it would not be an easy undertaking.

Then I locked myself away for three months with my core team in order to get the project off the ground. In April 2013, the first edition of Bio Eco Actual was published with 17,000 copies in Catalan, some of which were distributed at the Biocultura trade fair in Barcelona. It was here that we received the annual award given to the specialist press. In September of the same year, we took a big step forward when we published Bio Eco Actual in Spanish as well and it was available in the autonomous regions of Madrid, Castile and Leon, the Basque Country, Valencia and Murcia. We currently publish 300,000 copies a year.
 

Alongside the published copies, we're also online and can be accessed here where every month you can read Bio Eco Actual in Spanish and Catalan in Issuu and Pdf format. The online reports and news are updated daily and you can follow us on Twitter @bioactual.com.
 

I would like to highlight the special categories in the printed edition, such as nutrition, recipes, recommended organic products, geo-ecological health, natural cosmetics, sustainable building and environmentalists in the past. Noteworthy items in the digital edition are in particular the guide to vegetarian restaurants in Spain and the news about organic products that are updated on a daily basis.
 

The editorial team consists of Enric Urrutia, Montse Mulé, Oriol Urrutia and Marta Gandarillas, more than 22 colleagues, journalists and experts in different fields, including nutrition science and gastronomy, biology, naturalism, oenology, film, mountaineering, cosmetics and architecture for sustainable living. Bio Eco Actual is available every month in more than 4,000 outlets, organic health food shops, libraries, trade fairs and at events connected with organic food and the environment, plus in the offices of the Committee for Organic Certification in Spain. Some of them, like the Catalan Committee for Organic Farming, support Bio Eco Actual with articles. If you would like to read the digital edition of Bio Eco Actual, send us an email here.

Enric Urritia (managing director Bio Eco Actual)