Many Kossacks, especially regular readers of these food diaries, are serious about eating healthy, ethically- and sustainably-produced foods. To that end, we may shop at natural foods groceries or coops; buy organic; buy local; eat seasonal foods; and/or purchase prepared foods from companies that we trust to share our values more than the giant food distributors do.
So let me ask you this: do you buy products made by any of the following companies?
*Kashi
*Morningstar Farms
*Cascadian Farm
*Muir Glen
*Tazo Teas
*Seeds of Change
*Hain
*Stonyfield Farms
*Horizon
Yeah, me too. And know what? Every time we do, we are, usually unknowingly, putting dollars in the pockets of corporations like Altria (Kraft/Philip Morris), Kellogg's, General Mills, and Heinz. Read on.
The more I check out the structure of the food industry in this country a) the more horrified I am, and b) the more I believe we
must make a greater effort to know what we are buying. Because, unfortunately, no one is going to tell us the truth about our food unless we demand it. So consider the following my small contribution to getting the knowledge out there. I apologize in advance if any of the corporate relationships are outdated (buying and selling happens so quickly); but none of the information is more than a year or two old, and most is more recent than that.
Let's start with Altria. While this parent company name is not as widely known as the names of its largest divisions (Philip Morris; Kraft; Post; Nabisco), an estimated one out of every ten dollars spent by U.S. consumers on food goes to Altria, and Kraft is the largest food company in North America. Kraft markets many familiar products which include Maxwell House coffee, Oscar Meyer meat, Philadelphia cream cheese, and the Post and Nabisco products mentioned above, as well as some things we snobbishly think of as gourmet or European, such as Peak Freans and Toblerone. (For a complete -?- list of Kraft brands, see here.)
What else does Kraft make and/or market? Well, they've bought out Boca burgers, the soy burgers beloved by vegetarians who would otherwise be ostracized at barbecues. And they've recently started marketing Tazo teas, a super-premium tea brand sold in natural foods stores and increasingly found in standard grocery chains as well, thanks to their relationship with Kraft. Now, Tazo teas are owned by Starbucks in the first place. And Starbucks is, apparently, increasingly cozy with Kraft. A Kraft press release explains that the partnership "also capitalizes on the strengths of the two companies by combining Tazo's expertise in creating, sourcing and blending the highest quality specialty tea products, with Kraft's extensive knowledge of marketing, selling and distributing packaged foods to grocery customers." Sweet.
So who else owns what?
Kellogg's owns Kashi and Morningstar Farms.
General Mills owns Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen.
M&M/Mars owns Seeds of Change.
Smuckers owns After the Fall and Knudsen juices (although Knudsen also resides mysteriously on Kraft's product list--?). They also own Santa Cruz Organic.
The Danone Groupe (Dannon) owns Stonyfield Farms now. (Bad enough; but I see Dannon on Coca-Cola's brand list. Also Horizon milk. Odwalla juices, of course, are also owned by Coca-Cola.)
Dean Foods is a lesser-known name, but it is a dairy company whose sales are second only to Nestle. Brands include many "smaller" dairy labels like Hershey's chocolate milk, Land o' Lakes, Meadow Gold, Borden... and Horizon Organic. Dean now controls about 35% of all U.S. milk, including 70% of organic milk and 90% of soy milk. Their shareholders include Microsoft, General Electric, Philip Morris, Citigroup, Pfizer, Exxon/Mobil, Coca Cola, Wal-Mart, Pepsi-Co, and Home Depot.
Last but not least, what about Hain? Hain is a very large natural foods company which owns Celestial Seasonings, Health Valley, Westbrae, Westsoy and Soy Dream, Rice Dream, Arrowhead Mills, Earth's Best, Bearitos, Terra Chips, Little Bear Organic, Garden of Eatin', and Walnut Acres. Among other things. In general, these are good products. But should we care that Hain itself is becoming a giant corporate player? michaelbluejay.com, a socially-responsible investment site, points out that Heinz owns 20% of Hain (though recent days suggest Heinz is selling); and that Hain's biggest investor is one Wellington Management, whose investors in turn include Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, Alcoa, Gillette, Pepi, McDonald's, and Wal-Mart.
A quick look at Hain's board of directors reveals 2 representatives from Heinz, as well as one each from Jim Beam and MBNA. Also on the board is Daniel Glickman, Clinton's Secretary of Agriculture and currently CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (somebody please explain to me how these two jobs are related). Glickman is also on the advisory board of Coca-Cola.
So, is Hain any better than the others? It all depends on what our motives are for buying organic and/or "natural" products.
If all we want is to eat healthier food, and to reduce by some small factor the amount of pesticides and herbicides applied to our land, buying Hain, Kashi, or Cascadian Farm probably accomplishes these goals-- to a degree, anyway. And these are important goals, no doubt about it. Please buy Kashi cereal for your kids to eat instead of Kellogg's other product, Pop Tarts (see "Other Food News," below).
But some of us have additional goals that are not fulfilled by buying these products, and we need to raise consciousness of this fact. Phil Howard, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Agro-ecology and Sustainable Food Systems, notes that according to one estimate, 40% of the packaged organic foods on the shelves of natural food stores are produced by some of the biggest companies in the world. One result of big corporate ownership is that large companies are often able to undercut small organic producers on price, subsidizing their organic line with the vast profits they earn on their non-organic products. Over the long run, these corporate-owned organics can end up driving the small producers out of business.
Corporate-owned organic and natural-foods companies are rarely local, requiring all the same packaging and shipping costs as conventional prepared foods. They contribute to the centralization of food production and political power in the ag sector. They don't support small farmers and makers of value-added products. They don't support your local economy. They generally employ "organic" versions of monocropping and factory farming, rather than the more heterogeneous land-use techniques necessary for sustainable food production.
So next time you're shopping, take that list of names with you. I will (well, now it's imprinted in my brain...). I'm sure I will continue to purchase some of these products, but no longer naively. Knowledge is power.
*
OTHER FOOD NEWS:
As part of our continuing focus on food advertising to children, please note that a new report was released Tuesday by the Institute of Medicine, which is congressionally chartered to advise the government on medical issues. The panel, after reviewing hundreds of studies on the subject, came out highly critical of the advertising (using familiar characters such as SpongeBob Squarepants) used to market junk foods to kids. "We like to think that SpongeBob SquarePants and Shrek and the pretty little princesses are likable, kid-friendly characters, but they're being used to manipulate vulnerable children to make unhealthy choices," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who requested the study. The number of new food products aimed at kids introduced per year has increased tenfold since 1994. In response, The National Review's John Hood penned an exculpatory column entitled "Free SpongeBob!", which-- naturally-- blames parental-decisionmaking for kids' obesity and ill-health-- as well as the favorite scapegoat: lack of exercise.
Back on Nov. 27, Swiss voters voted to ban genetically-modified crops for the next five years. Go Switzerland.
Under CNN's headline, "Pop Tarts: the New Health Food?", we hear that Kellogg's company plans to replace transfats in some of its products with a Monsanto-produced soy oil called Vistive. Vistive soybeans are low-linolenic acid, which makes them more stable and reduces the need for hydrogenation. And they're "Roundup Ready!" Are you excited? Yeah, transfats (hydrogenated oils, that is) are bad for you. I'm willing to bet that Pop Tarts and Cheez-its with Vistive will still be bad for you. Just a hunch.
Some scientists are concerned that the "Roundup Ready" and low-linolenic acid genetic traits may interact with one another in unexpected ways that could be dangerous to human health; the interaction has not been fully tested.