Organic Explosion

Can You Trust "Organic" Any More?

Organic food has spilled out of the granola bag and onto the tables of mainstream America where consumers will this year be spending nearly $15 billion dollars on food items labeled “USDA organic”; a figure more than double the amount spent in 2000.

The same findings tell us that this former niche market now boasts a proven track record of 20 to 25 percent annual sales growth. With organic foods accounting for only 2.5 percent of the nation’s grocery dollars, a report from the Department of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University states that the organic market is the “fastest growing sector of the food and beverage industry”.

The organic hotspot

In other words, “organic is hot,” to quote the Organic Trade Association’s 2006 annual report. “The organic industry is at a new tipping point,” the report states, adding that 90 percent of consumers “have heard about organic” and more than 80 percent “say the benefits of organic products are believable.” The OTA sums up the trend this way: “Never before have we seen the degree of acceptance and interest in organic from mainstream supermarkets and consumers.” So what does it all mean?
Mainly, these numbers are the result of two factors: an increasing number of health-conscious consumers, many of whom care greatly about sustainability and related environmental issues.

Three-piece Suits in a Pastoral Meadow

Unsurprisingly, this exponential growth in the organic food industry is also attracting other admirers – the publicly owned corporations eager to cash in on an emerging giant. Wall Street’s emergence onto a food market niche once the sole domain of alternative co-ops and small-parcel family farms is both evident and hidden.
Walk down the grocery aisle and pluck a bottle of ketchup from the shelf. It may carry the certified USDA organic label as well as that of food industry giant Heinz. On the other hand, who would guess that such quaint “boutique” brands as Boca Foods, Muir Glen, and Kashi are respectively owned by Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg? From Coca-Cola and Pepsi to M&M Mars and ConAgra, the nation’s top food processing corporations are well entrenched in the organic marketplace, a fact that has been graphically documented
So, Can organic really be compatible with mass-scale production? “I would say yes,” states Matt Tyler of the Organic Consumers Association, a public-interest organization promoting the views and interests of America’s estimated 50 million organic and socially responsible consumers.
In fact, the practice of publicly traded corporations producing organic foods does not affect the organic efficacy of what’s inside the bag, can, or bottle. “That’s just not the case”, says OTA spokesperson Barbara Haumann and stresses that certified organic means “that the product is meeting the national organic standard, which includes production and processing. Whichever manufacturer made the product had to meet the national organic standards.”

Still, Tyler qualifies his affirmative with significant caveats. “Our contention has always been that the publicly traded corporations are legally obligated to maximize profit in order to act in the best interest of their shareholders”.

Because this causes a “fundamental conflict of interest” there is a feeling, according to Tyler, that the publicly traded model is not a long-term solution to producing organic foods. The great crack in what seems to be a desired shift in mass-scale production is the reality that profit-driven practices of big corporations will begin cutting corners, thus degrading organic production to a mere “marketing fad”.

From the point of view of the greater global good, however, the more organic products there are on the market, the more acres are being devoted to organic agriculture, improving soil quality and water-table health in greater and greater stretches of land.