So Who Do You Think Owns Organic Brands? You would be truly surprised and frightened by who actually OWNS ORGANIC!

We want to let you in on a little secret: buying and eating organic products doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s healthier or more nutritious. Most of the time, it does. But sometimes, organic brands and organic products are now what they seem to make out to be. Read all about it below:

At Just Add Good Stuff, we always promote self-education and awareness about what actually goes in and on your body. So we would like you to ask yourself … who owns organic? Who actually owns organic brands and who’s behind the clever marketing that is transforming our eating and buying patterns? The truth will scare you… it sure frightened us when we dug a bit deeper into the organics industry and how it is affected by the big conglomerates.

The frightening research that was published by Phil Howard, a respected professor of Agriculture at Michigan State, shows how the organic industry has changed over the past few years. So who owns organic? Did you know that organics and organic brands are now being gobbled up and taken over by the big conglomerates without the consumer even knowing? Well, Phil Howard embarked on researching which organic brands have been bought out and are now controlled by some of the 25 large conventional worldwide food processors.

He produced this Organic Food Industry Chart back in 2002 when the organic industry was at its infancy. This was also the first year in which the USDA first implemented the organic food labeling system/standard. In addition, Phil Howard also published an animated graphic on how the organic sector consolidation has taken place between 1997 and 2007.

Here’s some of his research in the ‘who owns organic’ question in the United States (and globally):

HEINZ is in strategic partnership with HAIN CELESTIAL. Hain Celestial is the maker of many ‘organic brands’ that include Celestial Seasonings, Soy Dream, Rice Dream, Arrowhead Mils, Garden of Eatin’, Spectrum Organics, Earth’s Best and Westsoy. In addition, Hain Celestial controls ShariAnn’s, Little Bear, Westbrae, Mountain Sun, Walnut Acres, Nile Spice, Casbah and Breadshop, which in turn are controlled by Heinz.

CARGILL also controls parts of HAIN CELESTIAL and FRENCH MEADOW

KELLOGG owns and controls BEAR NAKED, WHOLESOME & HEARTY (garden burgers), KASHI CEREAL and MORNINGSTAR FARMS (and Natural Touch, makers of many organic veggie burgers and vegetarian/vegan products).

GENERAL MILLS owns both CASCADIAN FARMS (organic produce) and MUIR GLEN (organic canned products).

CONAGRA owns both LIGHTLIFE and ALEXIA FOODS.

M&M MARS owns SEEDS OF CHANGE.

CADBURY owns GREEN & BLACK’S.

HERSHEY FOODS owns DAGOBA (organic chocolate).

KRAFT owns BOCA FOODS and BACK TO NATURE.

DEAN FOODS owns WHITE WAVE/SILK (organic soy products), ALTA DENA, HORIZON (maker of top selling organic milk products) and THE ORGANIC COW OF VERMONT.

NESTLE owns TRIBE MEDITERRANEAN FOODS (maker of top selling hummus in the United States).

PEPSI owns NAKED JUICE.

COCA-COLA owns ODWALLA JUICE.

Now, we’re not concluding that these organic products and fresh organic produce are unsafe, but as a consumer, wouldn’t you want to do more research into how this happened, and whether these so-called organics are truly unaltered, healthier and more nutritious than other brands that these conglomerates own? If these big global companies are buying out all the smaller organic produce and organic brands, they will have complete control over the organic industry… which to us, is quite scary.

There are, however, some independent North American certified organic food brands that are not yet owned by big companies (as of late 2009). These independent organic food brands total more than $25 million worth of annual sales (and growing) which make them likely acquisition targets in the near future. However, right now, here is a list of independent organic brands:

• Lundberg Family Farms
• Equal Exchange
• Nature’s Path
• Newman’s Own Organics
• Organic Valley
• Frontier Natural Products (includes Simply Organic products)
• Turtle Mountain
• Golden Temple (includes Yogi Tea and Peace Cereal products)
• Cedarlane
• Alvarado Street Bakery
• Applegate Farms
• Pacific Natural Foods
• Clif Bar (also includes Luna Bars)
• Traditional Medicinals
• Amy’s Kitchen
• Eden Foods
• Level Ground Trading
• Alter Ego Chocolate
• ProBar
• Galerie au Chocolat