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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] WAL-MART CHARGED WITH SELLING NONORGANIC FOOD AS ORGANIC
  • Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:03:15 -0700

WAL-MART CHARGED WITH SELLING NONORGANIC FOOD AS ORGANIC
By The Cornucopia Institute
November 14, 2006
The Cornucopia Institute, the nation's most aggressive organic farming
watchdog, has filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA asking them to
investigate allegations of illegal “organic” food distribution by
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Cornucopia has documented cases of nonorganic food
products being sold as organic in Wal-Mart’s grocery departments.
“We first noticed that Wal-Mart was using in-store signage to misidentify
conventional, nonorganic food as organic in their upscale-market test store
in Plano, Texas,” said Mark Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute.
Subsequently, Cornucopia staff visited a number of other Wal-Mart stores in
the Midwest and documented similar improprieties in both produce and dairy
sections.
Cornucopia notified Wal-Mart’s CEO Lee Scott in a letter on September 13,
2006 alerting the company to the problem and asking that it address and
correct the situation on an immediate basis. But the same product
misrepresentations were again observed weeks later, throughout October, at
separate Wal-Mart stores in multiple states.
“This is disturbing and a serious problem,” Kastel said. “Organic
farmers adopt and follow a rigorous range of management practices, with
audit trails, to ensure that the food they sell to processors and retailers
is organic and produced in accordance with federal organic regulations.
Consumers, who are paying premium prices in the marketplace for organic
food, deserve to get what they are paying for.”
Earlier this year, Wal-Mart announced a sweeping organic foods initiative
and declared that they would greatly increase the number of organic
offerings for sale in their stores—at dramatically lower prices than the
competition. The move by the giant retailer has been under close scrutiny
from members of the organic community seeking to assess what impact
Wal-Mart’s decision will have on organic food and farming concerns.
A number of other organic food retailers throughout the country, including
Whole Foods Markets and many of the nations member-owned grocery
cooperatives, have gone to the effort to become certified organic in terms
of the handling of their products and have invested heavily in staff
training to help them understand organic food production and sale concerns.

“Our management and our employees know what organic means,” said Lindy
Bannister, General Manager at The Wedge Cooperative in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. “If Wal-Mart intends to get into organics, they can’t be
allowed to misidentify ‘natural’ foods as organic to unsuspecting
consumers.” The Wedge, the largest single store member-owned food
cooperative in the nation, was one of the first retailers to go through the
USDA organic certification process.
“One can question whether Wal-Mart has the management and staff expertise
necessary to fully understand organics and the marketing requirements
essential to selling organic food,” observed Kastel. “At this point, it
seems they are attracted by the profits generated from the booming organic
food sector but are not fully invested in organic integrity. Given their
size, market power, and market clout, this is very troubling.”
Cornucopia’s complaint asks the USDA to fully investigate the allegations
of organic food misrepresentation. The farm policy organization has
indicated that they will share their evidence, including photographs and
notes, with the agency’s investigators. Fines of up to $10,000 per
violation for proven incidents of organic food misrepresentation are
provided for in federal organic regulations.
This past September, The Cornucopia Institute also accused Wal-Mart of
cheapening the value of the organic label by sourcing products from
industrial-scale factory-farms and Third World countries, such as China.
The Institute released a white paper, Wal-Mart Rolls Out Organic
Products—Market Expansion or Market Delusion?, that made the argument
that Wal-Mart is poised to drive down the price of organic food in the
marketplace by inventing a "new" organic—food from corporate
agribusiness, factory-farms, and cheap imports of questionable quality
(available at www.cornucopia.org).
The Cornucopia Institute’s White Paper, Wal-Mart Rolls Out Organic
Products: Market Expansion or Market Delusion?, along with a photo gallery
containing images of some of the organic items now being offered for sale
at Wal-Mart stores, can be found on the organization’s web page at
www.cornucopia.org as can Cornucopia’s legal complaint filed with the
USDA regarding Wal-Mart’s alleged organic product misrepresentation.
The Cornucopia Institute is dedicated to the fight for economic justice for
the family-scale farming community. Through research, advocacy and economic
development our goal is to empower farmers both politically and through
marketplace initiatives. The Organic Integrity Project acts as a corporate
watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming
methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of profit.







  • [Livingontheland] WAL-MART CHARGED WITH SELLING NONORGANIC FOOD AS ORGANIC, TradingPostPaul, 11/16/2006

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