I'm a bit behind the times, but I finally watched Food, Inc. Part of the film focuses on how some organic/natural food companies have sold out to bigger corporations. Some of them did it for profit. Others so that they could market and distribute more effectively, thereby reaching a greater number of consumers and affecting a larger (beneficial) change to the current system of food production. I was curious enough that I did a bit of my own research, as I do have my own list of favorite and semi-trusted brands. Some of them I knew had been acquired by larger corporations. Others were a surprise. Here's what I found:
- Back to Nature - Kraft
- Bear Naked - Kelloggs
- Ben and Jerrys - Unilever
- Burt's Bees - Clorox
- Cascadian Farm - General Mills
- Earth's Best - Heinz
- Kashi - Kelloggs (this one was a HUGE disappointment to me)
- Honest Tea - Coca-Cola
- Horizon -Dean Foods
- Lightlife Foods (aka SmartDogs, etc) - ConAgra
- Morningstar Farms - Kelloggs
- Mother's - Quaker/Pepsi
- Muir Glenn - General Mills
- Naked (juice) - Pepsi
- Odwalla Juice - Coca-Cola
- R.W. Knudsen - Smuckers
- Santa Cruz Organic - Smuckers
- Silk - Dean Foods
- Stoneyfield Farms - Groupe Danone
- Seeds of Change - M&M/Mars
- Tom's of Maine - Colgate-Palmolive
I'm still trying to decide how I feel about this. On one hand, I like a system that makes organic/natural foods affordable and accessible to more people. But on the other hand, I hate knowing that when I buy, say, Burt's Bee's products, I'm supporting the chemical system behind Clorox. Or that the dollars spent on my Kashi cereal go to finance the GMOs bought by Kelloggs.
Thoughts?
I agree, some of them were really surprising--for me the two most surprising were Burt's Bees being owned by Clorox and Pepsi as the owner of Naked Juice. Seems a bit hypocritical, doesn't it??
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