Does your purchase of organic milk conjure up images of happy cows? Do you buy brands like Nature’s Farm and Nantucket Nectars because you want to support small farms?
Well, this animated graphic will make you think twice about your organic purchases. It shows how small organic businesses (the green dots) get gobbled up by Big Food (the yellow dots) and private investment groups (the blue dots). Along the way, major food companies create their own versions of organic products (the red dots).
“These relationships aren’t very apparent,” said Philip H. Howard, assistant professor in the department of community agriculture, recreation and resource studies at Michigan State University and the creator of the graphic. “If you look at a product, a lot of times this ownership is not at all noted, even on the Web sites at times.”
Obviously, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a big company buying an organic brand. But Dr. Howard notes that many consumers seek out organic foods, in part, because they don’t want to buy foods from multinational food companies.
“Often organic consumers are interested in supporting smaller scale farms and food processors,” Dr. Howard said. “In the marketing of a lot of these organic brands the firms try to evoke that image of a small pastoral farm.”
After you watch the animated graphic (just click on the picture above), check out Dr. Howard’s Web site, where he has created several interesting graphics depicting the structure of the organic food industry. One chart shows what brands have been acquired by big chains, while another shows organic brands that have been created by large companies. Additional charts show locations for organic retailers and the major organic brands that remain independent.
Healthy living doesn't happen at the doctor's office. The road to better health is paved with the small decisions we make every day. It's about the choices we make when we buy groceries, drive our cars and hang out with our kids. Join columnist Tara Parker-Pope as she sifts through medical research and expert opinions for practical advice to help readers take control of their health and live well every day. You can reach Ms. Parker-Pope at 
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From 1 to 25 of 66 Comments
There might be something wrong with the animated graphic. Every time I try to view it, it crashes my browser (both Firefox and Explorer).
— MarthaFrom TPP — It’s working fine for me. Maybe some smart person out there who understands such things can give Martha some advice on how to solve this problem? It may be that you don’t have Quicktime on your computer? You can try reaching it through this link on the original website
“But Dr. Howard notes that many consumers seek out organic foods, in part, because they don’t want to buy foods from multinational food companies.”
Organic and Local/Small are two totally separate issues. People who conflate the two are making a mistake.
What should matter is NOT the size of the corporation, but its behavior.
Why don’t people ever trumpet the cause locally built computers? Locally printed books? Locally made cars?
Why such selectivity in attacking big corporations?
Let’s also not forget that many great foods (I’m particularly fixated on avocados right now) would not be available without big corporations carting them around the world and onto our plates. [Let's not even get into the environmental costs of growing food in a greenhouse]. Will people give up their Beaujolais because it’s not local?
Such selectivity!
— JoshuaI think that parent companies should be required to put their names on their products. Sometimes it’s a health issue. When I read that Perrigo had their seventeeth or so recall, this time acetominephin, I decided not to buy their products, but they never put their own name on the products they make.
Some of the most common health food products that are owned by big companies are Odwalla (Coca Cola),
— Peter SilvermanKashi (Kellogs), Tom’s of Maine (Procter and Gamble). I don’t think it’s bad, I think the consumer should know who the manufacturer is so they can choose large or small as they wish.
I often wonder about the true intentions of people who claim to buy organic for their health and buy locally for community. Is this similar to people who claim to buy luxury vehicles for driving performance and quality, or to those who live in fancy neighborhoods for safety and convenience, or send their kids to private school for the quality of the education. How much of this behavior is really about striving to define one’s identity w/ socioeconomic class by making smart and expensive purchases. Buying the best because you can afford is one thing, but claiming to do so for some greater cause is just obnoxious. Ironically, by accepting high prices for locally grown organic foods you’re making a statement that you don’t care if poor and working class Americans are eating badly. For anyone that suggests obscure local organic farm stands that take WIC or give handouts: imagine giving up the convenience of one stop shopping when you work full time and can’t afford childcare. To test this hypothesis: how many plastic surgery having, diet pill taking, underpaid domestic help employing mom’s do you know that only shop Whole Foods?
— EveTo counter this this “counter culture” of big business what we need is a new category of food designation.
“Sustainable Organic”.
This should help small growers and dairy farmers. There is no way to have “Big Organic” not impact the environment as is very evident from large organic dairy farms in California central valley. And if Big Organic can invent sustainable, low impact production methods, power to them!
Peace.
— Jaque, Palo AltoConsider adding this bit to your blog entry: When you buy organic dairy products, such as yogurt, kefir, cream cheese, or ice cream, they are often manufactured (reconstituted) from “organic” dry milk. The end result is just as “nutritious” as “natural juice” from “organic” concentrate…
Konstantin Monastyrsky, author of Fiber Menace
— Konstantin Monastyrskyhttp://www.FiberMenace.com
No, its not working for me either.
— Sam, NewarkAnd Frito Lay owns Stacy’s Pita Chips - who would have thought?!
— MCIt has a file type of MOV, which means it is a Quicktime movie. If you aren’t using Apple you have to install Quicktime (which takes over your computer like a virus), or you can download a subset (that only uses up 54MB of your hard drive) from here:
— Don Wisshttp://www.free-codecs.com/download/QT_Lite.htm
There seems to be antipathy towards those who support organic food.
I don’t understand why it’s obnoxious to be concerned about pesticide and fossil fuel use, as well as a lack of food safety that comes inherently from a centralized, global food system. Interest in organic foods has moved the entire food industry slightly away from pesticide use. The local food movement provides an alternative to fossil fuel consumption used to bring avocados from S. America. Coincidentally, local restaurants are starting to have more seasonal influence in their menus. There’s nothing wrong with this, or hypocritical.
Those who buy organic or local usually are concerned with the ‘poor’ who still eat ‘crappy’ food. I don’t know what to say about that except that ignoring local and organic options because they aren’t available to the poor is the best way to keep them exclusive. Whole Foods is prohibitively expensive, but local farmer’s markets are often substantially cheaper, and usually very accessible. Many of the vendors are those very poor that are supposedly left behind by the movement.
It’s a mistake to assume that we’re all latte-sipping, Acura-driving snobs. Maybe we’re just trying to do a little something to push commerce in the direction we think it should go while also getting better tasting food that may have fewer contaminants, a lower proportion of HFCS, and a lower proportion of trans-fats.
The fact that organic companies are being gobbled up by multinationals underscores their success, and the effect the organic movement has had on the food industry.
— aaronorganic foods are such BS–you pay more—for what?
There is nothing “oragnic” left on planet earth—it’s been polluted and used like an old whore……
— john nicolettiI was shocked to learn in “Omnivore’s Dilemma” that “free-range,” as in chicken, does not constitute much range or freedom. Sometimes, it means that in the last period of the chicken’s life (*after* the crowded condition and antibiotics to prevent the accompanying diseases) she gets to walk a bit inside a fenced area around the coop. Not what I expected.
No, I don’t expect every one to only eat local, truly organic food. Certainly not until prices are more reasonable.
However, I do what I can. Until there is increased demand for true organic, supply will remain small and cost high. So I add to the demand as much as I can.
Yes, I understand how importing foods from far away can, in fact, be a boon to the global economy, the planet and our bodies. I do not insist that only locally and organically grown food is edible.
I do, however, want *all* agriculture to become much more thoughtful. The current system has been bankrupting US farmers for years; it was never intended to benefit them, but the seed suppliers. I see no reason why we should not encourage local farming as much as we encourage foreign farming. I don’t see why agribusiness cannot understand how they could save all those antibiotics if they didn’t crowd; they could save all those pesticides if they used natural predators (free-range chickens in the corn field!)and healthier (less processed) seed stock; could actually do more with less if they went back to multi-farming, instead of the huge specialized one-crop only farming; and could do all of it with drastic cuts in petroleum use. If avoiding their products until they get the joke will give them the clue-by-four, then that’s where I’ll put as much money as I am able.
So, yeah. It would be nice to know when what I am
— Carolbuying is organically grown or “organic” in part.
In response to Joshua (#2), originally organic connoted small. The organic movement was made up of small, sustainable farms/gardens, using practices that were good for the earth. It was this way for about 30 years until organics became relatively mainstream and the medium and then big corporations began to take over, seeing the profits in the organic label.
I think the Locavore movement that has taken root recently has been a response to the organic movement becoming something it was not originally meant to be (i.e. corporate). Because the organic label is no longer a guarantee of food coming from a small business as it once was, people are making it a point to buy it from local farmers/artisans so that there is more of a guarantee of that.
And, FWIW, many small farmers who truly use organic practices are no longer bothering with the organic label as it has not only become diluted by the use of corporate farms, but the whole registration process is so expensive as to favor larger farms/farmers.
— KateAs someone who started in the Organic - Whole Foods Movement in 1971, after returning from Thailand where we spent the first 2 years of marriage, we landed back at Stanford University.
There were a few very hippie-like “health food” stores in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, and we helped to sustain them, and the local farmers and small, fledgling organic companies represented therein.
John Jeavons, of sustainable agriculture fame, had a tiny storefront where he educated people, a block or so from the campus. It was an exciting time, and we felt we were taking it to a new, wider level than the present “Health Gurus” like exercise phenomenon, Jack La Lanne (still going at 90), ever dreamed.
Over the years, I have watched such gobbling-up by big-business changes in the movement, with concern.
Just about everytime an original owner was bought-out, sooner or later, the “heart” and “concern” for the environment and / or their customer’s health gradually eroded.
Very few of these take-overs or hand-overs are well publicized, and big-business likes it that way. It’s frustrating they are NOT required to make an appearance on the label. I think they should be.
It’s just as frustrating to see the movement “yuppified”, and I was no hippie or yuppie, although, by socio-economic class and education, I/we would qualify as yuppies.
However, our committment to the Organic Whole Foods Movement came from, and continues to be, the deep reverence for Our Earth and for the equally deep Understanding that Health required a different set of Choices — and that’s even moreso today!
However, I am horrified that most shoppers at the mega stores of the past and present — Wild Oats and Whole Foods, especially, have NO ROOTS in the basic, underlying concerns and premises of the needed ecological principles of food production, and the nurturance of Earth, as well as Self.
There’s none of that in these huge corporations, and only a little in the big, organic retailers.
I totally still support small, organic agriculture, as local as possible, and have no objection if any of these companies grow hugely, as long as they don’t sell out their principles.
I do think the mega stores charge way too much. Organically grown produce has double the nutrition, studies have shown for about half-again the price, but larger scale agriculture which uses sustainable principles IS possible. Archer Daniels Midland et al just need to learn how. Up to now, they haven’t cared to. Scalability is an important component, but these mega retailers either charge too much so to fund their yuppified store-building campaign etc or they rake-the-supplier over the coals like Walmart, and potentially damage the whole meaning of “organic” in their wake and pressure.
Thanks for bringing the topic to more people’s attention, Tara.
Best to all — Em
http://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com
— Em“Everyone knows someone who needs this information!” (TM)
Anyone that is interested in why organic became “industrialized” should read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. A most interesting treatment of our food and its sources.
— Jon ChristensenThis is a map of doom. The job of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders. It is NOT to produce healthy food and a sustainable environment. The idea that this will happen as a byproduct of a free market economy was somewhat credible at the beginning of the nineteenth century, quaint by the first third of the twentieth century and outrageous by the start of this century. Big Food Corp will cheat, finagle, bribe, spin and lie their way to minimize the costs and thus quality and maximize their profits but there will be great ads.
— Lawrence TeagardenCouldn’t make the animated graphic work either.
— Typical Dial-Up UserI’ve been a bunny hugger for many years and am very annoyed at the big companies doing the same old thing and slapping a “green” label on it. People come up to me and show me their mylar wrapped high-fructose corn syrup based cookies and squeak, “Lookie! Its *organic*!” I say, “Hey! Its *Marketing*!” and explain the ingredients list on the box and the food supply chain in general. The only things I think are really organic come from my backyard. Lemons, asparagus, artichokes and strawberries. If I had the space, I’d keep chickens and goats. I’m lucky in that there are farmers markets in my town and that I can potentially drive to the farms and see where my food comes from. But, I harbor no illusions about Whole Foods. (I shop there anyway - it smells good.) I never buy at Trader Joe’s because everything seems to be packaged in plastic, plastic and more plastic. Various of my boomer friends would talk about how wonderful and politically correct their ready made meals are. I would tell them about the packaging and they’d look wounded. But, “Its organic. Organic food is good for the planet!” I laughed out loud when I heard TJs got their overpackaged “organic” broccoli from China. Oh, please. These folks bought the ready made stuff because it was cheap and they’re too lazy to cook. People need to keep their eyes open and look at everything - the source, the packaging, and the degree of hype around the “organic” products. But don’t walk around all moony eyed about the “green” marketing pitch.
— HerselfI think there’s a big to-do about nothing with organic food, at least so far.
We can say that substances found in non-organic food cause cancer in rats and in test tubes, but I don’t know of any studies saying that eating non-organic foods causes cancer.
We should worry more about risks we actually know about instead of investing ones that may not even be there.
— jackI agree with Jacque (#5): if big business came up with a way to be sustainable, I would have to support it. But it seems like a tactical impossibility, because to become “sustainable” within the meaning of the term would require a huge decrease in the profit margins of food production, which would negate the entire purpose of big agribusiness. It costs more to be careful with food. For example, while transportation would cost less, paying a living wage to American workers would far surpass the savings.
The only way to preserve the profits would be to drastically increase the prices, which would then negate sustainability (if we were to view sustainability as a worldview that promotes relative affordability, which I do: how can something sustain itself if no one can afford to buy it?).
However, there is another solution, which is precisely what happened to “organic:” big agribusiness lobbies Congress to install a federal USDA “standard” for “sustainable,” and completely eviscerates the term so that they can maintain profits while legally conforming to the new meaning. It’s great. Big Ag gets to have its “sustainable” cake and eat it too, while small local farmers STILL don’t get any subsidies, and now they don’t even get to preserve their short-lived little locovore niche that was keeping them from having to raze the tomatoes to grow corn.
— MichaelaEven with Quicktime installed my IE 7 did not play the movie automatically. I had to open Quicktime and then use “open URL” within Quicktime to open the URL of the movie: http://www.msu.edu/~howardp/OrganicIndustry.mov
— DanBut then, it worked.
First, if it is hot with the public, it will be bought by a big company. Money attracts the big companies. If a smaller company won’t sell, then the bigger ones will create their own brands and then outsell the little ones. It is just capitalism at work, like it or not (who am I to lecture in the WSJ??)
Second, the companies will give the illusion of not being big because people associate organic with a small company, not a conglomerate.
Finally, the products themselves may not be any worse from the large companies, so I suppose it should not matter to the consumer. It does bother them, however, because people “believe” in the organic foods, and don’t want “non-believers” making tons of money off of them. Corporations don’t come across as sincere when they put on the “do good” visage.
— Dr. RobMark Bittman wrote about this same issue three days ago on his NYT “Bitten” blog, with a link to a chart that doesn’t require a plug-in (for those people who are still having problems).
— roOrganic does not always mean “healthy” or “earth-friendly”. Local foods do not always mean organic. Cage-free eggs do not mean the chickens are happily running in the yard. Natural means NOTHING - it has no standards.
Health and environmental claims sell, so we will all see more of them. Sometimes these foods are MORE expensive because of the eco-looking packaging, consumer demand, or distance traveled.
In a perfect world, I would eat all local, organic foods. But it is much more complex than that and I try hard to not get fooled or drive excessively to find food. Here’s a great website for links and info: http://www.truecostoffood.org.
Be sure to watch the video. And show it to your kids! And check out the leader’s discussion guide. http://www.feedingthekids.org Ellie
— Ellie TaylorTo me the inside of a carrot is the inside of a carrot no matter where or how it was grown. Now the question is do I want to spend $3 on organic carrots or $.78 for regular carrots. I’ll pay $.78 please.
— Kevin Griggs