30 Minutes Bay Area

What Is Organic?

Reporter: Anna Werner

Producers: Anna Werner, Abby Sterling

(CBS 5) 30 Minutes Bay Area
Sunday, December 18th, 6:30pm

SCRIPT:

It's not your neighborhood natural foods store anymore....'organic' has hit the big leagues, with mammoth grocery stores stocked full of products from organic pop-tarts to frozen dinners.

And if you're wondering how those small companies can make all those processed products, maybe it's because many of them aren't so small anymore.

Big food companies are quickly trying to take over the organics business - so how will that change what is organic?

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You won't see their names on the labels of all these 'organic' products, but they're behind them: Kashi cereals...now owned by Kellogg's....Vegetarian Boca Burgers? Now owned by Kraft...itself owned by Philip Morris. Even that popular juice company:

WERNER: "Who owns Odwalla?"
JACKSON: "Coca-cola."
WERNER: "Coca-cola?"

Justin Jackson, who decides what hits the shelves at Whole Foods, has watched the natural food chain go from 30 stores to 180 stores nationwide in just a decade.

JACKSON: "That is a lot of money. I think there's a lot of money to be had in organic foods."

And with an estimated 15 billion dollars in sales just this past year, many large corporations are buying their way in... it's a trend that bothers many Whole Foods shoppers like Kate Kendall...

KATE KENDALL/Shopper: "I would like to think that buying organic means that you are supporting something other than the powers that be."


Supporting people like farmer John Kolling. Over 20 years ago, he started growing organic apples in Sonoma County...

KOLLING: "This is a real premier area for apples."

...producing organic apple juice and other apple products under the Solana Gold label.

KOLLING: "One of these boxes is about 20 cases of apple juice gallon."

He sold them in natural foods stores, right alongside other California brands. But one by one, he says, bigger companies started taking over his once local competitors. Like Santa Cruz Organics and R.W. Knudsen

KOLLING: "Smucker's bought those companies."

That's right. You won't find it on their websites, but both are now owned by J-M Smucker...a company that also owns Pillsbury and Crisco along with their jams and jellies. And Kolling says with so many big companies now in the game:

KOLLING: "They just pushed you around. And you got knocked off the shelf."

And that's what Kolling believes happened to his apple juice at one large chain store.

KOLLING: "We were just notified--you're cancelled, you're off the shelf."

And even at Whole Foods we found row after row of Smucker-owned Santa Cruz and Knudsen organic juices.

WERNER: "Do you think that consumers know, though, when they're looking at the juice section that three-fifths is actually Smucker of Ohio?"
JACKSON: "Ah, that's a... I do not think that consumers would know that, no."

And the fight between many longtime organic advocates and big corporations isn't just over shelf space. Some say it's a fight over the very nature of organics itself. Over how much and what can be added to a product and still keep this valuable USDA organic label.

RONNIE CUMMINS/Organic Consumers Association: "These big companies don't want to play by the traditional rules of organic integrity."

He's Ronnie Cummins, the head of the 600,000 member Organic Consumers Association-- who says it's been a constant fight.

CUMMINS: "The USDA in '98 said that it would be ok to use genetic engineering, food irradiation, sewage sludge for example."

That battle they won.

CUMMINS: "280,000 people wrote in to the USDA saying no way."

Then in 2004...

CUMMINS: "They said, oh yeah, some of these previously banned pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, tainted animal feed that aren't allowed in organic-- we're going to allow those after all."

And once again Cummins says they managed to stop it. But now this year the fight has gone to Congress. And this time Cummins says they're fighting a former ally - the Organic Trade Association, or OTA.

DiMATTEO: "The Organic Trade Association is a business association."

She's Katherine DiMatteo, the head of the OTA.

DiMATTEO: "We cover the entire chain from the farm through the retail store."

And in campy videos like this one, they market themselves as the defender of organic farms and farmers.

(video clip from "Store Wars") "...he's now more chemical than vegetable..."

But Cummins says recently...

CUMMINS: "There's basically been a takeover of the OTA by the big players."

He says companies like Smucker and Kraft. And just two months ago the OTA had a last minute amendment inserted into the massive Federal Agricultural Appropriations Act, an amendment Cummins and many others fear will allow hundreds of synthetic ingredients to start appearing in organic products.

CUMMINS: "This amendment was concocted in secrecy. It was not shared with anyone in the organic community. They're playing very hardball."

DiMATTEO: "I'm sure to some people that is what they would think."
WERNER: "But--did you get the word out?"
DiMATTEO: "No we did not."

She says that the OTA didn't need to.

DiMATTEO: "The amendment has now legalized or authorized the standards that we had all agreed to."

But not so, according to the Chair of the prestigious National Organic Standards Board, which reviews the quality and content of organic goods. In an open letter two months ago, Jim Riddle called the OTA "false and misleading," saying the group's "action opens the door to numerous [additional] substances being used" in organic products.

And that even though "Congress received 320,000 calls and letters" opposing it, "those concerns were ignored by OTA and the Republicans who carried the amendment."

DiMATTEO: "It's his opinion."
WERNER: "He's directly contradicting you. He's saying that you're WRONG."
DiMATTEO: "And we're saying HE is wrong. Organic isn't a religion you know. It's FARM production."

JOHN ARDREY\Eden Foods: "I disagree with her. And there IS a morality here."

He's John Ardrey of Eden Foods, one of the country's oldest natural food companies, and a leader of the fight against the OTA's amendment.

ARDREY: "We could do what conventional companies do. We could make things cheaper. We could use shortcuts. We could all make more money. But that's not what we're doing. We want to put out the very best thing we can do.

But will they be able to and still compete?

WERNER: "What do you fear happening to organic food?"
CUMMINS: "You can't grow a 15 billion dollar industry into a 50 billion dollar industry unless you cut corners."

DiMATTEO: "If you're in business you have to make profit. You have to have, you know, a return on your investment."
WERNER: "But do you think business is what organic food is supposed to be all about?"
DiMATTEO: "Ah that's an interesting question."

* * *

Smucker declined our request for an interview. You can find the company's statement at cbs5.com.

And the fight isn't over: the USDA still has to finalize regulations, and consumer advocates plan to protest in public comments.

(CBS 5)