Processors Make Organic Food Big Business
Posted on: Tuesday, 6 May 2003, 06:00 CDT
By EMILY GERSEMA
CHICAGO (AP) -- Food processors often promote organic food as grown by small local farmers, but organic is big business and getting bigger. More manufacturers produce organic food on a large scale, everything from potato chips to milk.
Jerry McGeorge, cooperative coordinator for Organic Valley, a farmer-owned organic dairy business in Wisconsin, said Monday that the image of the organic industry is changing as big processors enter the market.
"You still have people that tend to think that organic farmers are a little smaller than most," he said. "Of course, it's not true."
Once a small industry, organic food production has become more mainstream. Supermarkets are devoting whole sections and aisles to the products, grown without conventional pesticides, biotechnology, antibiotics or hormones.
With demand growing, large companies were bound to take an interest in the organic food market. Sales have steadily increased over the last few years, from $3.5 billion in 1996 to more than $9 billion in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Ellen Holton, spokeswoman for a company that certifies organic food, Quality Assurance International, said that if food giants like Frito-Lay hadn't begun marketing organic foods, the mainstream supermarkets might never have started selling the products.
Frito-Lay, the PepsiCo-owned snack food company, sells new organic blue and yellow corn chips under the Tostitos brand name, as well as an organic salsa.
Coca-Cola purchased a beverage line, Odwalla, in 2001, and is selling organic carrot, apple and orange juices.
The spice producer McCormick & Co. (MKC) Inc. has offered a small line of organic spices such as thyme and rosemary for a year.
Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, said although large processors and beverage companies are getting into the market, organic farmers still have a role in production.
"There are a number of companies that are purchasing all of their ingredients from small farmers," DiMatteo said.
The image of the producers is changing, but so is the typical organic consumer, said Cheryl Bottger, vice president of natural food sales for the marketer, Tree of Life Inc.
Food-conscientious "foodies" are no longer alone in buying organic.
"It's the thirtysomethings," Bottger said. "It's the X and Y generations that are the biggest consumers of this product. It's families with young children."
Bottger and Holton were at a Chicago food show sponsored by the Food Marketing Institute.
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