Friday, September 18, 2009

word for the day: Industrial Organic

Last week i mentioned something about the Opportunity Green Conference and one of the readers commented how some of the natural products companies are being bought by major/big-time corporations. This automatically triggered a diagram i saw while reading Cool Cuisine: Taking a Bite Out of Global Warming last year (PS if you want a copy, we should be getting them in next month) of SOME of the "who owns who" in the organic food industry. A quick search lead me to Phil Howard of Michigan State University's work..get ready!

Now note: this was created in Jan 2008, well over a year ago AND we both know this does not include every "organic/green" product out there, JUST FOOD (and probably not all of that either).
This is another big debate in the green industry-some say that having small, start-ups bought by big business is a good thing: more marketing dollars. Others however, say that the integrity of the original mission-statement, ingredients, operation, sourcing of raw goods, and manufacturing might be compromised with a buy-out.
my opinion: if you wanted "green", why not do it yourself, or better yet, change what you are doing now.
i would love to hear more comments on this chart or the debate!

No comments: