1992: From Austin to Wall Street

Now operating 12 stores in Texas, California, North Carolina and Louisiana, Whole Foods Market went public. The prospectus stated that a significant segment of the population now attributes added value to high quality natural food.

Marian Burros, a food reporter for The New York Times, wrote that these gleaming new supermarkets 13,000 to 27,000 square feet of floor space bear about as much resemblance to the grungy, 1960s fern-bedecked natural food co-op, with its shriveled produce and flour stored in trash cans, as McDonalds does to Lutce.

Later that year, the company expanded into the Northeast with the purchase of the Boston-based supermarket chain Bread and Circus.

1996: From Hippie to Hip Capitalist

Whole Foods acquired Fresh Fields, a Maryland-based chain with 22 stores. Mr. Mackeys natural foods empire now consisted of 70 stores in 16 states. While still small compared to traditional supermarket chains, the natural and organic foods company grew at more than 20 percent a year. The next year, revenue surpassed $1 billion.

1997: Whole Foods, Whole Paycheck

Whole Foods started its store brand, 365 Everyday Value. The private label was later used to combat the perception that Whole Foods, sometimes known as Whole Paycheck for its notoriously high prices, was too expensive for everyday people.

2002: Fighting Unions

Mr. Mackey says he is pro-employee, but anti-union. In Madison, Wis., workers voted to unionize, a victory that was later decertified. Mr. Mackey told The Times that the vote came from his inattention to worker concerns. The following year, he visited all the Whole Foods stores in the United States to bond with employees.

2004: Manhattans Largest Supermarket

Whole Foods, which already operated a 40,000-square-foot store in Chelsea, opened its flagship 58,000-square-foot store in the basement of the Time Warner Center. On opening day, a line stretched out the door.

2006: Wall Street and Foodies Grow Disillusioned

Critics began to complain that Whole Foods was straying from its roots. The newer stores focus on prepared food and include in-store restaurants and spas. Bruised by competition with traditional grocery stores, the stock dropped by nearly 40 percent.

2007: An Ill-Fated Merger

The Federal Trade Commission challenged the acquisition of Wild Oats, claiming that the deal would create a natural-foods monopoly. The F.T.C. discovered that Mr. Mackey had used a pseudonym to write anonymous blog posts attacking Wild Oats. The end game is now under way for OATS, Mr. Mackey wrote in one. Whole Foods is systematically destroying their viability as a business market by market, city by city. Two years later, Whole Foods agreed to sell 13 stores to resolve the complaint.

2008: Selling a Stake to a Private Investor

Squeezed by the financial crisis and traditional grocery stores, Whole Foods stock plummeted 76 percent in one year. The company sold a 17 percent stake to Green Equity Investors, an affiliate of Los Angeles-based private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners.

2009: Obamacare and a Boycott

Mr. Mackey wrote an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal quoting Margaret Thatcher and arguing that the last thing our country needs is a massive new health care entitlement. His companys liberal-minded customers responded with a boycott.

2013: The G.M.O. Label

Whole Foods became the first retailer in the United States to label all genetically modified foods. The companys stock peaked at $65.24.

2015: Wall Street Sours

Wall Street analysts grew increasingly negative as organic food became cheaper and more popular at big supermarket chains.

Conventional retailers can get it into their stores more cheaply, and they can be more predatory on pricing, Mark Retzloff, a pioneer of the natural and organic foods retail business, told The Times. If one of those stores is just down the street from a Whole Foods, theres a big segment of their customer base that isnt going to shop at Whole Foods anymore.

2017: Under Hedge Fund Duress

After the activist hedge fund Jana Partners took a stake in Whole Foods and pushed for change, the company overhauled its board in May and began a push to cut costs. Gabrielle Sulzberger, a private equity executive who is married to Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the chairman and publisher of The New York Times, became chairwoman.

In an interview with Texas Monthly published on June 14, Mr. Mackey criticized activist investors. Its the idea that business is about a bunch of greedy bastards running around exploiting people, screwing their customers, taking advantage of their employees, dumping their toxic waste in the environment, acting like sociopaths, he said.

Two days later, Amazon agreed to buy Whole Foods for $13.4 billion.

A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2017, on Page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: The Life of an Organic Giant.

Read more:

How Whole Foods Became the Organic Giant - The New York Times - New York Times

What is organic food?

Food that is labeled "organic" has been grown or raised without synthetic chemical fertilizers, pest killers (pesticides), weed killers (herbicides), hormones, or drugs. Synthetic means that they are made in a lab.

This means that farmers and ranchers who grow organic food:

Some countries, including the United States, have rules that govern when a farmer or rancher may use the organic label. Before a grower can use that label, a government inspector goes to the farm to make sure that the rules are being followed.

Don't assume that food labeled "natural," "sustainable," "hormone-free," or "free-range" is organic. Look for the USDA organic seal .

You may have these questions about organic food:

Food grown with pesticides can have small amounts of pesticide left on the food when it gets to the store.

If you are concerned about pesticides on your food, here are some steps you can take:2

WebMD Medical Reference from Healthwise

Read more from the original source:

Organic and Chemical-Free Foods-Overview - WebMD

To say the June 16 announcement that Amazon announced that it will be acquiring Whole Foods, the iconic purveyor of organic wares and interesting beverages, to the tune of $13.7 billion sent shock waves through the retail sector would be an understatement. Whole Foods has been struggling as of late: Amid competition from companies like Target and WalMart, both of which have been ramping up their sales of organic and natural products, Whole Foods has posted seven consecutive quarters of tumbling sales and in May, swapped out five of its dozen board members (one of whom, full disclosure, is Fast Company owner Joe Mansueto) in an effort to inject new energy into the company. By selling to Amazon, theyre throwing a Hail Mary.

But as substantial as the deal is, its perhaps not all that surprising, once the aftershocks fade. I was surprised, but not too surprised, Joe Dobrow, who was head of marketing at Whole Foods until 2000, and subsequently wrote the book Natural Prophets: From Health Foods to Whole FoodsHow the Pioneers of the Industry Changed the Way We Eat and Reshaped American Business, tells Fast Company. Rumors of a Whole Foods sale had been circulating for a while, Dobrow says; competitors like Albertsons, Kroger, and Publix had all expressed interest.

While selling out to a larger grocery retailer with a bigger reach might have given Whole Foods the financial boost it needed, that would have entailed sticking with the status quo. If youre looking at the talent pipeline at Whole FoodsfollowingCEO John Mackeytheyre all grocery guys over there, Dobrow says. What Whole Foods needs is innovation, and if youre looking for where that brilliant visionary leadership is going to come from, its not going to be from within Whole Foods. But Amazon could be a huge booster shot of innovative leadership, and set Whole Foods on a path to adapt to the 21st century, which has been lacking.

The entire $800 billion grocery industry as a whole, Dobrow says, is facing some uncertainty. Caught in the middle of a will-they-or-wont-they dance with online retailfueled in part by Amazon, whose AmazonFresh grocery delivery service debuted in 2013the financial performances of brick-and-mortar groceries like Kroger, which have long been predictably strong, are faltering. While online grocery sales account for only 4.3% of the market currently, a report from Nielsen this year predicted that theyll reach as much as 20% of the market share by 2025. That gives you a sense of how much of a ramp there is, Dobrow says.

And in buying up Whole Foods, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, seems to have identified another sector of the grocery industry with a huge growth potential: natural and organic food. Despite the enormous growth of Whole Foods since it was founded in 1978, and despite the piqued interest of larger retailers in selling higher quality products, natural and organic foods still represent only around 5% of all food sales in the United States.

Before this deal, you heard people in the industry saying that if we could get organic sales up to 10% of the market share, that would be a huge chunk of business, and represent a huge societal change, Dobrow says. So Im sure Bezos took a look and realized it was a no-brainer for Amazon to play a role in expanding the percent of the market taken up by natural and organic food.

And the way theyll be doing so appears will likely be through ramping up Whole Foods e-commerce component. For those Whole Foods devotees concerned that the Amazon acquisition will tarnish the stores signature community-centric and friendly ethos, theres little cause for immediate concern: Amazon has said that proceedings at Whole Foods 456 outposts, as well as its handful overseas and in Canada, will remain largely unchanged. Amazon, at least initially, says it has notimplemented the technology it developed to facilitate Amazon Go, its Seattle-based cashless convenience store, nor are there any planned payoffs. Of course, that could all change in the future, but the company has let subsidiary Zappos largely chart its own, often idiosyncratic course. (On the other hand, there is certainly the possibility that Amazon, always ruthless, thought this was just the cheapest way to get a lot of urban real estate for warehouses.)

What might change: According to Dobrow, it would not be surprising to see Whole Foods launch some loyalty programs, and integrate Amazon purchase algorithms into their retail experience. Previously, Dobrow says, such initiatives have not fit into the Whole Foods ethos, but now that the company is owned by Amazon, theyre going to accept the notion that Whole Foods should be analyzing their data and giving them suggestions and recommendations, and auto-refilling their cupboards based on past purchase history, or installing mini-kiosks in malls or airports.

If Jeff Bezos is putting Amazon backing behind a retailer that, despite its cult following, still has only a small share of the market cornered, he is hopefully making the statement that Whole Foodsand the kinds of products it sells and supportsis the direction were all heading in.

Eillie Anzilotti is an assistant editor for Fast Company's Ideas section, covering sustainability, social good, and alternative economies. Previously, she wrote for CityLab.

More

Read more:

Could The Amazon-Whole Foods Union Be What Takes Organic Sales To The Next Level? - Fast Company

Online retailer Amazon unveiled plans to buy Whole Foods Market in its biggest food and supermarket acquisition to date.

On Friday, the multi-billion pound chain confirmed the buy-out of Whole Foods for a mammoth $13.7 billion - or 10.7 billion.

The Seattle-based retailer, which sells just about everything from pet food, to fashion, jewellery, electronics and TV shows, said it had long been considering the takeover in its bid to push into the grocery market, with discussions as recent as last autumn.

Amazon will buy the organic food chain for 42 US dollars per share - 32.80 - but will continue to operate stores under the Whole Foods brand.

poll loading

Yes No

Whole Foods currently has 460 stores across the US, Canada and the UK, with nine of them in Britain, namely dotted around the capital.

The grocery store - which specialises in healthy, vegan and eco-products - will continue operating under the Whole Foods name, the company's headquarters will remain in Austin.

Co-founder John Mackey will stay on as Whole Foods CEO.

In a statement, Mackey said: This partnership presents an opportunity to maximise value for Whole Foods Markets shareholders, while at the same time extending our mission and bringing the highest quality, experience, convenience and innovation to our customers."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said: "Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy."

Maria Prados, VP at online payments platform, Worldpay, added: "Amazons move to buy Whole Foods is a clear sign of its intention to disrupt the grocery industry globally.

"From the "Dash" buy button, to the launch of the AmazonFresh service last year, the eCommerce giant has been taking clear steps to build its position in the grocery sector. And investing in a physical presence could be the key to Amazons success in this space.

With one in ten Brits now doing all their grocery shopping online*, it is now easier than ever to buy household necessities from the comfort of our sofa.

"We have reached a tipping point in the evolution of the UK grocery market, and it will be interesting to see whether Amazon will continue to focus on their culture of convenience and reliability, or whether they will end up creating a whole new online shopping experience, taking the chore out of the weekly shop."

Amazon's latest shock announcement comes just days after the firm teased of plans to emerge in the cars market - with reports claiming sales will be piloted on its UK website, before being rolling out to other countries, if successfull.

According to claims leaked on German website, Automobilwoche, the new service will be based in Luxembourg but will start its operations in the UK first.

Amazon recently recruited Christoph Moeller, a motor industry expert at consultancy Oliver Wyman, to spearhead the new project, although it's yet to confirm any official plans.

It's not the first time Amazon has dipped into the automobiles industry. In Italy last year it partnered with Fiat Chrysler to sell the Fiat 500 and the Panda on its Italian website.

According to Auto Express, Amazon cars could allow customers to order their motors online and have it delivered to a nearby dealer.

Continued here:

Amazon confirms plans to buy organic food chain Whole Foods in mammoth $13.7 billion takeover - Mirror.co.uk

New York Times

Amazon Deal for Whole Foods Starts a Supermarket War New York Times Whole Foods has had its own struggles. Once a pioneer of the organic foods movement, Whole Foods has more recently struggled to shed its image as too pricey, too upscale and too out-of-touch with customers who want more natural foods at more ... Amazon confirms plans to buy organic food chain Whole Foods in mammoth $13.7 billion takeoverMirror.co.uk Amazon is buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billionCNNMoney Prime Organic: Amazon To Buy Whole Foods For $13.7 BillionGothamist The Guardian -VentureBeat -The Japan News -Amazon - Press Room - Press Release all 1,514 news articles »

Visit link:

Amazon Deal for Whole Foods Starts a Supermarket War - New York Times

With the increasing awareness on the significance of consuming slow food or home-grown food, many people are turning to organic eating. Keeping up with this trend, The Imperial hotel in New Delhi recently curated a special 'green' Hi-Tea spread under the guidance of the hotel's Executive Sous Chef, Alok Verma.

However, if you missed your chance to sample the delectable spread, we got Chef Verma to spill his secrets to creating a wholesome meal.

From a spinach, avocado and aloe vera smoothie to a caramelized apple cake with ragi and cinnamon, there's something for everyone.

Alok Verma, Executive Sous Chef, The Imperial, New Delhi.

Cauliflower and orange mousse, balsamic caviar

Ingredients Makes: 5 portions

Cauliflower: 250gms Milk (skimmed): 350ml Cooking cream: 100ml Leeks: 20gm Butter: 50gm Orange: 1 Salt: To taste White pepper: To taste

For caviar Olive oil: 1 cup Balsamic vinegar: 100ml Agar agar: 10gm

Method

- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add leeks. Saut until they start to sweat. - Add cauliflower florets and saut further for 3-5 minutes. - Pour the milk in the pan and cook until the cauliflower is thoroughly cooked. - Remove from heat and puree in a high speed blender, pass through a sieve. - Add the mixture to a heavy saucepan, stirring over medium heat for 2-3 minutes to dry out. - Place in a bowl and cover surface with plastic wrap. Chill thoroughly. - Whip the heavy cream until firm. Gently fold whipped cream into the cold cauliflower mixture. - Spoon into serving dishes. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until ready to serve. - When serving, top each dish with a chilled portion of caviar and a slice of orange.

For caviar - Keep the oil in the freezer about 30 minutes. - Bring balsamic vinegar to boil in a pan over medium heat. - Add agar agar to the pan and mix well to combine. - Pour the balsamic mixture into a small bowl and fill your syringe - Working fairly quickly, drop tiny droplets of the balsamic into the oil.

Sorghum Dhokla with scraped coconut

Ingredients Makes: 5 portions

Jowar ka atta: 200gm Semolina: 120gm Ginger (paste): 15gm Green chilies (paste): 5gm ENO fruit salt: 2 pkts Curd: 250gm Water: 150ml Lemon juice: 1

For tempering Oil refined: 2 tsp Mustard seed: 2gms Cumin seeds: 2gms Curry leaf: 1gm Sugar: 100gm Water: 200ml Fresh coriander: 25gms Crated coconut: 50gms

Method

- Mix semolina with curd and water for 10-15 minutes - Add all the ingredients except ENO salt, mix well to combine - Now add ENO, and immediately pour the mixture in to a greased plate - Steam for 25 minutes over low flame, remove from heat and set aside for 15 minutes - Heat up the oil for tempering. And add all the ingredients except sugar and water - When it starts to crackle, add water and sugar bring it to boil and pour that mixture over the Dhokla - Garnish with fresh coriander and scraped fresh coconut.

Purple quinoa, parsley and millet salad with pomegranate

Ingredients Makes: 5 portions

Purple quinoa: 1/2cup Millet: 1/2cup Italian parsley chopped: 100gm Cucumber chopped: 150gm Mint chopped: 25gms Pomegranate seeds: 150gms EV olive oil: 120ml Lemon: 2 Salt: To taste Pepper: To taste

Method

- Pressure cook the millets and quinoa for 20-25 minutes or until fluffy. - Drain the water and allow it to cool. - In a large bowl add all the ingredients and mix well. - Check for seasoning, garnish with reserved pomegranate seeds and serve cold.

Spinach, avocado and aloe vera smoothie

Ingredients Makes: 5 portions

Fresh spinach leaves: 200gm Ripe avocado: 350gm Aloe Vera juice: 100ml Water: 300ml Honey: 45gms Lemon juice: 2

Method

- Combine the aloe vera juice, spinach, avocado and honey in a blender and puree for about 1 minute until smooth. - Add water to reach the desired consistency. - Serve chilled.

Sandwich style buckwheat and blackcurrant scones

Ingredients Makes: 5 portions

Buckwheat flour: 150 gm Refined flour: 60 gm Baking powder: 5 gm Salt: 1 gm Butter (chopped & chilled): 35 gm Breakfast sugar: 50 gm Egg (whole): 100 gm Milk: 165 ml Black currant: 40gm

Method

- Mix all the dry ingredients and add chilled butter to get a crumbly texture. - Add eggs slowly at regular intervals. - Pour milk into it and mix it to get a dough. - Add black currant into half the dough to make fruit scones. - Roll and cut into rounds. - Egg wash and bake at 172 C for 9 minutes and then at 160 C for 5 minutes.

Serve Cut scones into half and garnish with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

Caramelized apple cake with ragi and cinnamon

Ingredients Makes: 5 portions

Butter: 200 gm Chopped apples: 500gm Ragi flour: 1100 gm Corn flour: 40 gm Baking powder: 8 gm Salt: 10 gm Egg (whole): 4 Egg (yolk): 2 Vanilla Bean: 3 Honey: 120 gm Maple syrup: 90 gm Lemon zest: 3

Method

- Mix all dry ingredients together. - Cream butter and sugar in an electric mixer. - Mix the whole eggs & yolks, and pour in the mixture at regular intervals. - Add honey and maple syrup. - Saute apples in butter with vanilla and lemon zest. - Fold dry ingredients in the above mixture along with sautd apples. - Pour the batter into lined rings and bake it at 200 C for 30 minutes.

Read the rest here:

Six recipes for organic-food lovers to drool over - Economic Times

Produce processors and retailers are finding it increasingly difficult to secure sufficient supplies of organic produce, as domestic demand continues to rise at a pace that exceeds production, according to a new report from CoBank. The dollar value of U.S organic produce sales doubled from 2011 to 2015 and annual sales now amount to $5.5 billion. Currently, 15 percent of all U.S produce sales are organic. While organic acres have nearly doubled over the last decade, that pace of supply-side growth has been sluggish relative to demand.

Sales of organic fruit, vegetables and nuts have increased dramatically in recent years and this growth trend will continue, said Christine Lensing, CoBank senior economist, specialty crops. More than half of U.S. households are now purchasing some organic produce. But for a variety of reasons, production has not been keeping pace with demand and the supply gap is widening.

More domestic growers would need to transition to organic to bridge the supply gap. But Lensing concludes that given current consumption trends and the length of the required transition period, organic produce supplies will likely remain under pressure over the next three to five years.

Food companies and large retailers have increased imports to meet demand and secure supplies throughout the year. The volume of U.S. imports of selected organic specialty crop items soared by almost 800 percent from 2011-2013 before leveling off.

Its quite clear the market for organic produce will continue to grow, which creates opportunities for growers, adds Lensing. However, transitioning to organic comes at a cost and is not without risk. Steady domestic supply growth will be dependent on consistent, wide premiums that reward growers for accepting the elevated risks associated with organic production.

Despite premiums of 30 to 50 percent, the perceived risks associated with transitioning to organic are often a significant deterrent for conventional growers. Key among those risks is the absence of an established market that offers transitioning growers a premium price during the lengthy three-year transition period. Concerns about market and price sustainability, the additional labor required for organic farming and the absence of support systems such as subsidies or grants compound grower reluctance.

According to Lensing, the organic industry recognizes these challenges and is taking steps to help alleviate some of the pressures on transitioning growers.

A new partnership between the Organic Trade Association and the USDA has been established to provide guidance to growers transitioning to organic production and is laying the foundation for a transitional organic market.

Initiatives such as the transitional organic certification program and the formation of additional strategic partnerships should serve to encourage more domestic organic production and help address the marketing challenges created by supply shortfalls, added Lensing.

Here is the original post:

Surging demand for organic produce widens US supply gap - High Plains Journal

Dive Brief:

While the popularity of organic food is growing, it is inevitable that organic food fraud may increase, too.According to the OTA, organic food sales totaled $43 billion in 2016. Organic produce makes up about 15% of all of the fruits and vegetables Americans eat. And these numbers are projected to keep growing. According to a TechSci Research report, the global organic food market is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 14% until 2021.

The organic certification also can be given to products imported into the United States. Those products are supposed to be subject to the same rigorous guidelines and inspections as the ones produced domestically.

But late last year, The Washington Post found three large shipments of corn and soybeans that came into the United States from Turkey were labeled as "USDA Organic," even though they were conventionally farmed and had been treated with pesticides.Reporters found pesticide residue tests on "organic" produce were uneven, with more than a third of the tests done by a single test company in China showing more than traces of the residue.

Many have criticized USDA for being too lax and slow in inspecting fraudulent organic imports. In this situation, it makes sense for a trade association to step up its efforts. Batcha told The Washington Post the agency is lobbying to give USDA more enforcement powers in the next farm bill, which is set to be passed next year.

In the meantime, USDA announced it will post more organic program enforcement actions on its website. In an email press release this week, the agency said it's now publishing suspension or revocation of organic certification notices. Settlements and decisions also will be added to the site much more quickly within weeks instead of quarterly.

While the industry is redoubling efforts to ensure organic food lives up to its certification, how consumers may feel about it is another question. With organic fraud stories getting a fair amount of play in the news, do consumers trust the products that are labeled as "organic"? Stepping up enforcement and boosting transparency are two parts of regaining consumer confidence.

Public information campaigns about organic food, inspections and what the certification actually means may be another piece of the puzzle. Showing consumers more about what makes products organic and how manufacturers and regulators ensure the products deserve the certification can bridge the credibility gap that may have opened.

Excerpt from:

Organic Trade Association steps up the fight against fraud - Food Dive

Likewise, animals on organic farms are not generally healthier. A five year US study showed that organic health outcomes are similar to conventional dairies. The Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety found no difference in objective disease occurrence. Organic pigs and poultry may enjoy better access to open areas, but this increases their load of parasites, pathogens and predators. Meanwhile the organic regulation against feeding bee colonies with pollen supplements in low-pollen periods along with regulation against proper disinfection leads to sharply lower bee welfare.

Organic farming is sold as good for the environment. This is correct for a single farm field: organic farming uses less energy, emits less greenhouse gasses, nitrous oxide and ammonia and causes less nitrogen leeching than a conventional field. But each organic field yields much, much less. So, to grow the same amount of wheat, spinach or strawberries, you need much more land. That means that average organic produce results in the emission of about as many greenhouse gasses as conventional produce; and about 10 per cent more nitrous oxide, ammonia and acidification. Worse, to produce equivalent quantities, organic farms need to occupy 84 per cent more land land which cant be used for forests and genuine nature reserves. For example, to produce the amount of food America does today, but organically, would require increasing its farmland by the size of almost two United Kingdoms. That is the equivalent of eradicating all parklands and wild lands in the lower 48 states.

But surely organics avoid pesticides? No. Organic farming can use any pesticide that is natural. This includes copper sulphate, which has resulted in liver disease in vineyard sprayers in France. Pyrethrin is another organic pesticide; one study shows a 3.7-fold increase in leukaemia among farmers who handled pyrethrins compared to those who had not.

Conventional food, its true, has higher pesticide contamination. Although it is still very low, this is a definite benefit of organics. However, using a rough upper estimate by the head of the US Food and Drug Administrations Office of Toxicology, all conventional pesticide residues may cause an extra 20 cancer deaths per year in America.

This pales in comparison to the impact of organics. If all of the United States were to go organic, the cost would likely be around $200 billion annually from lower productivity. This is money we cant spend on hospitals, pensioner care, schools, or infrastructure.

Visit link:

Think organic food is better for you, animals, and the planet ...

When you purchase organic food, you expect the product you receive to be, uh, organic. But how do you really know? Unlike, say, comparing different varieties of apples, conventional apples look the same as organic apples: The difference is in the process. Within the US, inspection agencies operate to make sure organic farmers are on the up-and-up, but verifying foreign imports have proven to be trickier, and as The Washington Post reports, the papers own findings of millions of pounds of imported fake organic grains has helped lead to the creation of a new task force dedicated to ensuring the integrity of organic products imported to America.

Last month, The Post ran an expose on these fraudulent organic imports. In one example, 36 million pounds of soybeans traveled from the Ukraine to Turkey to California. Somewhere along the way, those beans were illicitly designated as USDA Organic, a move which added approximately $4 million in value to the shipment. Needless to say, the stakes on this kind of fraud is extremely high not just for those making a million dollar windfall, but for honest organic farmers in the US who are seeing their prices undercut. As a result, the Organic Trade Association has announced a new task force to tackle the issue. There is a strong desire on the part of industry to stop the incidence of fraud in organic, Laura Batcha, director of the association, told The Post. The consumer expects that organic products are verified back to the farm. The industry takes that contract with the consumer very seriously.

However, many farmers are reportedly skeptical an OTA task force will make any difference, in part because the group has often been criticized for supporting big business over smaller farmers. It remains to be seen whether this effort is serious or not, John Bobbe, who is the executive director of a farmer cooperative, told The Post. The OTA has been strangely quiet about this issue. It seems they have been looking the other way - the see no evil scenario. But I guess they cant ignore it now. I think the fire is burning enough that the flames can't be stamped out.

For her part, Batcha said she wants to get the USDA involved in the effort. Were going to Congress - we want to close the loopholes, Batcha was quoted as saying. The task forces work is important but its not the only thing were doing. Meanwhile, for the consumer, the takeaway is that even items labeled USDA Organic arent 100 percent foolproof because the financial implications are probably even bigger than the health ones.

See more here:

Fraud Task Force Will Take on Fake 'Organic' Foods - Food & Wine