Organic Brands and Who Owns What
Good magazine—with the help of a Michigan State University agriculture and resource studies professor—has put together a chart showing which of the major U.S. corporate food processors own or have ties to the organic brands we often see on the shelves. It's a helpful chart, but there's no accompanying article that I could find on the site. So I ask: What's the point? I'd like to read something that informs me as to why I should care about the relationship between these entities. Otherwise, the chart's implication is "association with corporations = bad." Which prompts me to play devil's advocate: Is it a given that simply being a subsidiary of a major corporation paints the organic brand with a less-than-green brush? Do you avoid these brands because of their ties? And if so, the info I'd find even more useful: What noncorporate organic brands do you buy instead?
Related: Be It Ever So Homespun, There’s Nothing Like Spin [New York Times]
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7 Comments:
It's not really a full article but this article is the accompanying article. Nothing really insightful, but just more useless facts to squeeze into the brain.
variaas at 10:23AM on 03/14/08
Thanks, variaas. That's the link I originally followed to the chart itself. I mean, I'm curmudgeon myself and reflexively think the worst of big companies, but I was hoping Good would have some more info and alternatives to feed me.
Adam Kuban at 10:31AM on 03/14/08
Good tends to have these interesting charts on various subjects, with no supporting information. The intention, I believe, is to show you something interesting and let you draw your own conclusions. For instance, in the same issue they had a bar chart showing the number of troops participating in every major US conflict, and what percentage that number was of the US population. Very interesting stuff (I think WWII was close to 10%), but they didn't have any other information along with the chart.
dmorriso at 10:47AM on 03/14/08
Ah, OK. I've picked up the first issue when it debuted but haven't read it much since. Will have to start watching the website more. Thanks for the insight, dmorriso.
Adam Kuban at 10:51AM on 03/14/08
I was discussing this topic recently with my boyfriend after discovering the purchase of Burt's Bees by Clorox. On the one hand, I see it as something of a whitewash - present a nice organic side so that you don't have to make any changes or clean up your act in the rest of your business - especially as (in Europe at least) owning such a company would give them a higher availability of environmental/polluting 'credits'. On the other hand, I like to see the increased importance and market share that this clearly indicates organic products are gaining.
sarahdlr at 11:06AM on 03/14/08
I sort of liked the chart. Consumers might have individual reasons for avoiding a certain company; a person may disagree with ConAgra's politics or have had a bad experience with Kraft. Pretty much all media has it's biases (I know, obvious), and there are biases here but I rather like the "draw your own conclusions" approach.
lovesomething at 1:10PM on 03/14/08
It's definitely a great chart, but it requires an equally great analysis. What is the connection between these labels and the corporation? It's just so confusing! One must automatically assume that when a small organic brand is bought out, small business ethic and small company suppliers are swept to the wayside. Is this true? We don't know, but it's certainly telling of this industrial agriculture age. I wrote about my experience with Seeds of Change here:
http://readkitchen.blogspot.com/2008/03/duped-by-chocolate.html
lesliepariseau at 8:44PM on 03/15/08