Charting the Rise and Consolidation of Organic

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April 10, 2009

Between 1997 and 2002, the USDA drafted and implemented a National Organic Standard, an act that unified the disparate state by state regulations and unified certification under one umbrella. This move, while benefiting the consumer, by providing a universal labeling system for recognizing a product as organic, also opened the door for giant food manufacturers like Kraft, ConAgra and General Mills to enter this segment of the marketplace.

Phil Howard, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies at Michigan State University, posited that this change would lead to greater consolidation in the organic food sector. He has created a number of telling graphics that illustrate the truth behind his initial thinking.

It’s interesting to note that as many of these smaller organic companies are acquired by larger corporations, their names are rarely changed – a savvy marketing ploy to keep the consumer fantasy alive and preserve their relationship with the original products. This isn’t to say that all of these acquisitions completely dilute the positive impacts of the “little guy,” but as we’ve seen, the word organic has increasingly come to mean something very different from the pastoral images of family run farms that most people imagine when they pick up a package of organic chicken or head of lettuce. Given the steady growth of this “big” organic industry and the fact that its practices are often very similar in kind to its non-organic counterparts, knowing where our food comes from is no longer as simple as reading a word.