This morning, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled: “Organic Foods Get on Private-Label Wagon: As More Shoppers Pinch Pennies, Grocery Chains See ‘Natural’ Expansion of Store Brands”. The gist of the piece is that brand name organic food producers have begun to offer cheaper, store banded versions of their products. Think: Safeway Organic Lima Beans - made by the same company who sells the $5 can of organic lima beans.
“It’s not an easy decision,” said Clint Landis, chief marketing officer of the Norway, Iowa, co-operative. “We are competing with ourselves.”
The benefit of course, is that they’ll sell tens of thousands of additional units, albeit at a much smaller margin. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this:
1) It’s great that there is enough demand for organic that we’re even having these types of conversations.
2) This is an unfortunate path for organic - the only benefit is lower prices for consumers. Organic should not be about the lowest price possible - it’s about paying the “correct” price for food that is better for your health and the environment. If money is more important than those other considerations, go buy conventional.
3) De-diversification of our food supply. Lower and lower prices happen only through scale, resulting in fewer choices from a smaller number of vendors. The more we rely on just a few companies (or a few types of food…I’m looking at you corn and soybeans!), the more susceptible we are to crop failure and the contamination of our food supply.
4) Isn’t this the same cycle that got us to where we are today? People push for lower and lower prices, which can only be achieved by compromising the quality and ideals of the food itself. This already happened with conventional food, and we’re worse off for it. It’s a little better this time around, since we’re talking about organic food (better for the environment and our bodies) but still a bad prospect in the long term.
Isn’t organic food about ideals and not just the method of production?
Here is a link to the article, which probably won’t work for you unless you are a subscriber. Lame, I know.
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I think this is a step in the right direction. Baby steps, right? There are some organic companies that charge whatever they think they can get away with and the prices are higher than what it should actually cost.
Perhaps this will actually drive the cost of organic foods down by increasing the volume of organic produce/foods produced. That would definitely be good for the environment.
Note here: I’m not talking about this being good for the local farmers. We should support and pay for the true cost of food for our local farmers and producers, especially when they pay their employees a living wage (and hopefully themselves too).