(MintPress) – The label of “organic food” may provoke an idealistic image for many people of a small farm where a family tends to its agriculture before sending off the fruits of its labor to a nearby grocery store. While that Norman Rockwell-like scenario may have once existed, corporate influence from some of America’s largest food and beverage producers, such as PepsiCo and Kellogg, has turned the organic food industry on its head by consolidating organic business and changing the number of non-organic materials that can be put in food labeled as “organic.”
In the United States, organic food accounts for 4 percent of all foods sold, but the business is growing on a large scale. According to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), sales of organic food and beverages stood at $26.7 billion in 2010, up drastically from a $1 billion figure in 1990. From 2009 to 2010, organic fruits and vegetables sales grew by 11.8 percent. And much of this growth was happening under the nose of America’s largest food suppliers at mass market retailers such as supermarkets and warehouse stores, where 54 percent of organic products were being purchased.
Capitalizing on a trend
In response to the booming trend, food and beverage giants began submitting bids and purchasing natural and organic food companies, which has led up to today’s consolidated market: Boca Foods is owned by Kraft; Coca-Cola owns Odwalla while PepsiCo has stake in Naked Juice; and in 1999, Heinz bought equity into Hain Celestial, which owns more than 20 natural and organic food and beverage companies.
One of the most recognizable names by space consumed on store shelves is Kashi, which started as an independent project in 1984. Their products did not gain notoriety across the country until it became a subsidiary of Kellogg in 2000. And for companies like Kellogg, there’s no doubt that money can be made. More often than not, organic food is more expensive because of limited supply and post-harvest handling, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Phillip Howard is an associate professor at Michigan State University and is widely acclaimed in the industry structure of organic processing. Howard told the New York Times that large food corporations bought in at the right time as organic food trends began to pick up steam at the turn of the century.
“In some ways, organic is a victim of its own success,” Howard said. “Big corporations see the trends and the opportunity to make money and profit.”
In an April editorial for CommonGround, Howard said small organic food operations are willing to give in to large corporations because it provides them the funds to advertise their product on the national market. It also gives them leverage with grocers when it comes to obtaining shelf space against other organic competitors.
“These corporations can better afford to influence consumer demand for their products with expensive advertising. They can also subsidize price cutting on organic foods with sales from other products, in order to drive their competitors out of business,” Howard wrote. “Remaining independent is therefore not what an economist would call a rational decision, but what these firms have in common is a strong commitment to values beyond just profit.”
Diluting ‘organic’
Beyond altering the ownership landscape of organic foods over the past 15 years, “Big Food” has taken control of what substances can go into the creation of organic foods. The New York Times reports that in 2002, 77 nonorganic substances were approved to be used in the process or making organic foods. Today, more than 250 nonorganic substances occupy the list.
Many of the corporations involved in the buyouts of the smaller organic firms have also joined the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) board where they have a say in what nonorganic substances can go in organic foods. Since the involvement of the corporations, the number of non-organic compounds approved for organic use has grown exponentially.
In 1990, only a few years prior to the big boon in organic producer purchases, Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), which required the USDA to set uniform standards for the production of organic consumables. Since then, a 15-member board has been designed to facilitate an approval process for substances to be challenged and voted on prior to approval. Some of the corporations gobbling up organic food businesses are the same ones on the board, however. General Mills and Campbell’s Soup are both voting members of the board.
Mark Kastel, director of the Cornucopia Institute, an economic advocacy group, recently looked over the group’s investigation of the National List, calling it the “Organic Watergate.” Kastel said the system to approve substances for organic food is broken, and recently pointed to the board approving Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) as a food additive. DHA is an omega-3 fatty acid that has strongly been correlated with prostate cancer and colon carcinoma cells.
“(The system has) been neutered. After DHA got onto the list, we decided to go back and look at all of the ingredients on the list,” Kastel said. “The average consumer has no idea that all these additives are going into the organic products they’re buying.”
The Cornucopia Institute released an independent review of the NPO and some of the substances approved by the board. It found that 6 out of 10 shoppers who consciously sought out organic foods while shopping would not purchase the products if they knew synthetic substances were used during production.
“Who would have thought, when members of the organic community lobbied Congress to set up a system to assure integrity in the organic industry, that we would find the National Organic Standards Board approving a food ingredient classified by the World Health Organization as a ‘possible carcinogen’ in organic food?” the institute wrote.
Unfulfilled promise
After President Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, Miles McEvoy became the Deputy Administrator of the NOP, making him responsible for the oversight of organic food policy in America. At the beginning of his service, McEvoy promised unannounced field testing of organic products to ensure they complied with the standards.
But that field testing has yet to happen, leading to oversight that is limited to speculative studies. A Consumers Union study found that 25 percent of a random sampling of organic food contained traces of pesticide that is not sanctioned for use in organic food production.
As a result of the field testing absence, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) formally called for unannounced inspection and strict criteria for the inspectors in March. The group said the integrity of the organic food industry is at stake when such loose standards and bureaucratic voting methods dictate what food is treated with.
“I think the organic community and industry will be well served if we set standards for inspectors to calibrate expectations and accountability throughout the industry,” said NOSB standards board member John Foster. “We owe it to certified producers and handlers, and to consumers, to ensure that the boots on the ground have sufficient experience, expertise and training.”