MINNEAPOLIS, MN: A public interest group that
focuses on food and agriculture, The Cornucopia Institute, announced
this week that it had filed formal complaints
with the USDA’s organic program, and Wisconsin and Minnesota officials,
alleging that Target Corporation has misled consumers into thinking
some conventional food items it sells are organic.

The complaints are the latest salvo into a growing controversy
whereas corporate agribusiness and major retailers have been accused of
blurring the line between “natural” products and food that has been
grown, processed and properly certified organic under tight federal
standards.

“Major food processors have recognized the meteoric rise of the
organic industry, and profit potential, and want to create what is in
essence ‘organic light,’ taking advantage of the market cachet but not
being willing to do the heavy lifting required to earn the valuable
USDA organic seal,” said Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at
Cornucopia.

The Wisconsin-based farm policy research group discovered Target
nationally advertised Silk soymilk in newspapers with the term
“organic” pictured on the carton’s label, when in fact the
manufacturer, Dean Foods, had quietly shifted their products away from
organics.

Dean Foods, and its WhiteWave division, received media scrutiny, and
industry condemnation, this past spring for not notifying retailers or
changing the UPC codes, when they quietly switched to conventional
soybeans in their core-products.

Dean/WhiteWave also received heat in the organic food and
agriculture community when they decided to convert some of their
Horizon products, the leading organic label in terms of sales volume,
to cheaper “natural” (conventional) ingredients. “This really hit a
nerve because one of these new Horizon products, Little Blends yogurt,
is aimed specifically at toddlers, at an early stage of development,
where the nutritional superiority of organic food, and its utility in
avoiding chemical residues in our food, is so critically important,”
Kastel added.

A front-page story in the

Chicago Tribune in July outlined
a consumer survey that showed the public was unclear about the
difference between natural and organic labels and that some
corporations, particularly Dean Foods, were taking advantage of the
confusion in the marketplace.

The story quoted Suzanne Shelton, president and CEO of the Shelton
Group which conducted the survey, as saying, “They [consumers] think
‘natural’ is regulated by the government but that organic isn’t, and of
course it’s just the opposite.”

In fact, a strict set of farm and food handling standards have been
developed and implemented by the federal government to regulate food
that qualifies for the USDA’s organic seal. For the most part, food
products containing “natural” ingredients represent little more than
soothing marketing puffery aimed at consumers.

This is not the first tangle involving Cornucopia and Target. The
giant Minneapolis-based retailer’s own upscale private label food line,
Archer Farms, which blurs the line selling both natural and organically
labeled food, came under scrutiny when Cornucopia discovered that it’s
organic milk supplier, Colorado-based Aurora Dairy, was flagrantly
violating federal organic livestock standards and filed a complaint
with the USDA.

USDA investigators determined that Aurora had willfully violated 14
federal organic regulations. In what was condemned as a “sweetheart
deal” by some in the organic industry, the Bush administration allowed
Aurora to stay in business. Unlike some other retailers, Target stuck
with Aurora as their milk supplier for their Archer Farms label.

“In an industry where educational achievement and passion are the
common denominators in describing its clientele, Target could certainly
be viewed as arrogant to think they can take advantage of consumers by
ignoring both the spirit and letter of the laws governing organic
commerce,” Kastel affirmed.

SuperTarget stores have gained significant market share around the
country and are, according to a recent Nielsen/Shelby report, now the
number two grocer in Minnesota’s Twin Cities market.

“We feel very strongly about taking seriously the use of the regulated term:

Organic,”
said Lindy Bannister, general manager of The Wedge, the nation’s
largest member-owned cooperative store. “Although we welcome all the
players that bring organic food to people, we must insist that, for the
unregulated (the non-certified retailers), they at the very least
should proof their ads as they are subject to a federal fine for
misusing that regulated term.”

This is not the first time The Cornucopia Institute has found that
specialty retailers, like the nation’s approximately 275 co-op grocers,
have faced unethical competition from big-box chains. After the group
filed complaints with federal and state regulators against Wal-Mart in
2006, also alleging misrepresention of conventional food as organic
with improper signage in their stores, the nation’s largest retailer
signed consent agreements with the USDA and the state of Wisconsin
committing to change their practices.

“Wal-Mart did indeed clean up its act, as we expect Target to do,
but it should not take the judicious oversight of an industry watchdog
to cause these giant corporations to comply with the law, said Will
Fantle, research director for the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia. “One of
the reasons these companies can undercut other retailers is they do not
invest in the kind of management expertise necessary to prevent
problems of this nature from occurring.”

“It’s bad enough Target steals real farmers’ identities with that
fake ‘Archer Farms’ label,” said Barth Anderson, a consumer long
involved in the organic movement and chief blogger at Fair Food Fight.
“But blurring the lines between natural and organic is just plain
wrong. Target is trying to profiteer at the expense of consumers like
me.”

Anderson was adamant that, “There’s nothing wrong with larger
corporations being involved in organics but if they squeeze out ethical
companies by cutting corners, or play fast and loose by the rules,
everyone loses — real farmers, organic consumers and retailers alike.
Blurring the lines between natural and organic is just plain trying to
profiteer at the expense of consumers like me.”