Wal-Mart Charged with Selling Nonorganic
Food as Organic
Group
Asks USDA to Fully Investigate Organic
Product Misrepresentation
Cornucopia,
WI: 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).
EDITOR'S
NOTE: 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.