The Cornucopia Institute has filed legal complaints with the USDA
alleging that Wal-Mart,
and a North Carolina-based company, HOMS LLC,
are violating the USDA organic standards by using conventional
agricultural oils, and other ingredients, in pest control products that
bear the word organic and the green “USDA organic” seal.

The pest control products in question are marketed under the Bio
Block label (see front
of bottle, back
of bottle, and company webpage product screenshot).

A debate has been raging for years whether non-food products, such as
pet food and personal care products, are included in the strict
regulations that determine the use of the word “organic” on packaging.
Most of those products at least had organic ingredients involved in
their manufacture, whereas Bio Block pest control products contain not a
single organically produced ingredient.

However, there has never been any question that the green “
USDA
Organic” seal can be used only by producers that follow the
rigorous standards mandated by Congress and administered by the USDA’s
National Organic Program.

In addition to using the word organic prominently on its label, HOMS
uses the USDA seal on at least one of its Bio Block products without
specifying that organic ingredients were used, and without disclosing
the identity of the organic certifying agent, which is also required by
federal organic regulations.

“This amounts to, allegedly, illegally usurping the value of the
organic label,” says Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at
Cornucopia. “The USDA Organic seal is meaningful to consumers and
should not be used frivolously. This places ethical industry
participants at a competitive disadvantage.”

The Bio Block products that appear to violate the organic standards
were discovered on the shelves of Wal-Mart stores, resurfacing concerns
long held by The Cornucopia Institute, and others in the organic
industry, that the giant corporation has failed to take the organic
standards seriously.

For years, Cornucopia has criticized Wal-Mart for inventing a “new”
organic—food from corporate agribusiness, factory farms, and cheap
Chinese imports of questionable authenticity.

Wal-Mart’s store brand organic milk, for example, comes from Aurora
Dairy in Boulder, Colorado. In 2007, federal investigators found
that Aurora had “willfully” violated 14 tenets of the organic standards,
including confining their cattle to feedlots, instead of grazing, and
bringing thousands of illegal conventional cows into their organic
operation.

Inside Wal-Mart stores, Cornucopia researchers at the time discovered
that the company was mislabeling conventional foods as organic,
including yogurt, sugar, rice milk, soy milk and produce. Cornucopia
notified Wal-Mart’s CEO of the problems with in-store signage, but the
corporation ignored these concerns until officials of the Wisconsin
Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and the USDA
took enforcement
actions against Wal-Mart in 2007.

“These instances of mislabeling are emblematic of the company’s lack
of investment in knowledgeable staff, its inexperience, and its
questionable commitment to organics,” says Kastel.

While Wal-Mart vowed to solve its false and misleading in-store
signage problems, Cornucopia says it has failed to ensure that its store
brand organic milk, and some of its other product offerings, come from
ethical family farmer following the spirit and letter of the organic
law.

Now the organic industry watchdog alleges Wal-Mart is once again
marketing organic products fraudulently.

Cornucopia contends that it is not only up to farmers, food
processors and certifiers to ensure that foods labeled “organic” are
truly organic, but that retailers play an important role as well.

Retailers can and do invest in the resources necessary to ensure
organic integrity in their stores. The Wedge, a member-owned
cooperative grocer in Minneapolis, handled Bio Block pesticides very
differently from Wal-Mart when recently approached by one of HOMS’
distributors.

Since the Wedge has invested years in recruiting, hiring and training
qualified staff, it came as no surprise that one of their buyers
questioned the legality of Bio Block’s labels.

The Wedge is one of about 275 cooperative grocers in the country,
which collectively helped pioneer the growth in the organic industry.
The Wedge was one of the first certified organic retailers in the
country and has a full-time Organic Certification and Sustainability
Coordinator, Susan Stewart.

“We take the confidence our members and shoppers have in The Wedge
very seriously,” said Stewart. “Our job is to protect the integrity of
the organic label and the authenticity of the food and products we offer
in our store.”

Cornucopia states that this collaboration between farmers, organic
processors and retailers, in partnership with the USDA, makes the
organic label the gold standard in helping consumers choose safe and
ethically produced food.

“As an organic industry watchdog, we make sure that stakeholders in
the organic community, like The Wedge, are not placed at a competitive
disadvantage by outfits like Wal-Mart that are attempting to profiteer
from the trust consumers have in the organic label,” stated Cornucopia’s
Kastel.

• Link
  to Wal-Mart complaint
• Link
  to HOMS/Bio Block complaint