Phil -

This is fantastic research. I had stared my own corporate ownership database project a few years ago, but had to put it on the back burner.

How often do you update? One merger I thought might be of particular interest is American Spirits, which was purchased by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc.

Best,

Michael

Thanks Michael. I try to update the chart every six months or so. Due to space limitations I have limited it to organic food brands introduced or acquired by the top 50 global food processers. This leaves a lot out, such as the JM Smucker acquisitions of After the Fall (1994), Santa Cruz Organic (1989), and R.W. Knudsen (1984) juices; 'natural' foods brands; and everything that's going on in the retail and distribution sectors. It also leaves out the big names that haven't been bought out by multinationals, such as Nature's Path, Amy's, Organic Valley and Eden.

Phil

Dear Mr. Howard,

Thank you for creating a work of importance in the field of organic study and observation. The chart provides invaluable data and lead for further expansion down the road to help us understand who owns what, when and where as the movement becomes saturated with new players.

I needed to be in the know of such for the purpose of innovating new ideas and concepts associated with expanding the market on a holistic front.

Best endeavors, all things considered.

Julius
Development Department

Wonderful data display. I will show this chart to my research methodology class. I believe it's a wonderful example of valuable research that's cleverly presented.

I very much appreciate this work. Thank you.

Best, Van
Portland State University

Hi Phil,

This is great. There's a lot of interest in this right now:

http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/5886/NYT_Editorial_Organic_is_not_merely_a_label

I was wondering if you know of any resources that list the organic companies that aren't corporately owned by Coke, etc. I'd like to know who I should support and who I can safely purchase from at the organic store.

Thank you for everything you're doing.

Lisa

Hi Lisa,

I mentioned Nature's Path, Amy's Kitchen, Organic Valley (a cooperative), and Eden earlier. Some other big companies are Golden Temple/Yogi Tea, Alvarado Street Bakery (a cooperative).

Unfortunately Eden was the only one of these to oppose the rider to the spending bill, recently approved by Congress, which weakens the national standards. Nature's Path, Amy's, Organic Valley and Alvarado Street Bakery all supported it.

Your best bet is to look for addresses on the label that are near where you live, which are likely to be smaller companies.

Also, here is a list of companies (including Eden) that opposed the rider:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos/Oppose102705.cfm

Phil

Hi Phil,

Your chart on Corporate Ownership is extremely interesting! It contains such important information that I would love to share with others. When I try and print out the chart, it comes out a bit fuzzy. Would it be possible for you to email me a PDF version of it. Would you mind if I printed it and shared it with others?

Thanks,
Jessica

Dear Sir,

Where may I find the latest version of your chart
perhaps in pdf format? I would like to share it
with the members of our Organic Food Co-op in Dayton, OH. Where could I find more info on the mergers
than aren't in your chart that you mentioned regarding
Amy's Nature's Path, etc? Our organic food buying club
is trying to also unravel the distribution network
for such companies as United Natural Foods, which we
do purchase from, however we are desepately searching
for more local and regional suppliers.

Thanks for all your assistance. If you are ever
in or near Dayton OH, and want to give a talk
we would love to have you visit!

Patricia Young
Dayton (oakwood) Oh

We'd also be interested in a pdf, if one is available, to post at our co-op in Saint Louis.

Thanks so much for the valuable info!
patree

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Replying to:

Hi Phil,

Your chart on Corporate Ownership is extremely interesting! It contains such important information that I would love to share with others. When I try and print out the chart, it comes out a bit fuzzy. Would it be possible for you to email me a PDF version of it. Would you mind if I printed it and shared it with others?

Thanks,
Jessica

Is it poossible to be able to print this chart? I know it gets up dated very often as more and more take overs happen but it would be extremly useful to be able to post this in our food Co-op

Great chart - so glad someone is doing this because it's really important for everyone to know who owns whom. Have you got an updated one for 2006? Keep up the great work!

Thanks Dr. Howard this chart is really helpful!

Here are a few updates that i've found on the web:

June 2005 pdf format:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/orgjune05.pdf


June 2005 with some parent compnaies listed:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/orgChart.pdf#search=%22organic%20industry%20structure%20phil%20howard%22

Great informative chart for any one related to the health business. The info itself however makes me sick to my stomach. What is happening....talk about corporate takeover.....scary.

Phil Howard's Organic Industry Structure chart has been updated. You can see the August 2006 version at www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/rcbtoa/services/corporate-ownership.html

Thanks Phil for the chart. When I saw this chart for the first time, I was really surprized. Almost every big player in the food industry has an organic division.

Do you think these large players, in near future, will influence the organic food standards?

Kiran

The short answer is that it is very likely.

The USDA included genetically engineered organisms, irradiation and sewage sludge in its draft definition of national standards in 1997. In 2003, Fieldale Farms convinced GA rep Nathan Deal to include a measure in a federal spending bill that would allow chicken producers to feed conventional feed to "organic" chickens when the price of organic feed was high. Although this was ultimately unsuccessful, the Organic Trade Association convinced Congress to put a rider on an agricultural appropriations bill that formally allowed synthetic ingredients in processed organic foods (among other things) in 2005. For more on this see:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm

Currently there is a debate about access to pasture for organic dairy cows, and whether or not large-scale operators such as Horizon and Aurora meet the specifications of the national organic standards. For more see:
http://cornucopia.org/index.php/category/news/

Phil

Phil:

As always thanks for the updates. Any way of making
the chart downloadable? In the meanwhile may I ask
for a printable format to share with our local health food buying club?

Thanks,
Tricia

I, too, would love a PDF so I can print it out and post it at my co-op.

Thanks, again, Phil, for your terrific work!
tree

Phil, would it be possible to create a second-tier chart showing the JM Smucker acquisitions and/or the ownerships of Nature's Path, Organic Valley, Amy's, Eden, etc?

Thank-you.

A color pdf version of the chart is available here:
http://www.msu.edu/%7Ehowardp/OrganicChartAug06.pdf

Glad to hear it is useful.

Phil

A second tier chart is a great idea. It's somethign I've been thinking about because I'm often asked which (big) organic companies are still independent. There's no room in this one page chart, but a separate chart would work. There might be room to include other changes, such as venture capitalist acquisitions (i.e. the purchase of Annie's Homegrown via funding from Solera Capital). I'll work on this as soon as I can and see if cyber-help has room to publish it when I'm done.

...I'm not sure what to call it. Can you tell me what "type" of chart it is?

Thanks,
Bob

www.tomorrowland.org

Hi Phil, I concur with everyone else here that this is a fabulous graphic representation of a disturbing message regarding what is happening in terms of corporate control in the organic agriculture sector.

Unfortunately I'm not finding that the link you've provided for the pdf version of the Aug 06 chart to work...any suggestions?

Thanks and keep up the good work!
Rachel

Found an alternate source for the pdf of the August 06 version of the graphic at:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/orgChart.pdf#search=%22organic%20industry%20structure%20phil%20howard%22

Any chance you've been able to work on that second generation graphic as discussed before or can you suggest where one might find more information on the big independent organic companies and their market shares?

Thanks!
Rachel

Try this link:
http://www.msu.edu/%7Ehowardp/OrganicNov06.pdf

I hope to have a chart of independent companies in a few weeks. Market share is very difficult to determine, many private companies do not report sales, and scanner data doesn't include all retail channels.

Phil

Thanks Phil, the link works perfectly.

I've noticed that there are differences in the corporations listed from Aug 06 to Nov 06, (i.e. Cadbury Schweppes and J.M. Smucker have disappeared and Hershey Foods and Anheuser Busch have appeared). I assume this is due to who made it into the top 25 corporations.

I also assume that things like "PC Organics", which is a trademark of Loblaws, aren't included because Loblaws is a retailer and not a processor. Do you do research into this area as well? Although, creating an in-house brand is somewhat different from stocking the brand names from the major processors that you've listed such as Walmart is doing.

Since you can obviously only present so much information on one page I was wondering whether there was any chance you've published a comprehensive list of all the research you've done tracing the corporate acquisition of organic brand names? i.e. that would still include Cadbury Schweppes and J.M. Smucker even though they're no longer in the top 25.

I'm thinking of the kind of table that's available at http://www.organicconsumers.org/Corp/mergers.cfm - unfortunately it is a few years old now and includes natural as well as organic products. I know many of the brand names I don't know them all and I am looking specifically at organics.

I'm curious how you've been able to do the tracing as I note that many of the organic brand names don't appear in these companies profiles in their respective listings in Food Processing, Aug 2006. Does a comprehensive list of organic brands exist that you can then keep tabs on in terms of knowing who has bought whom? Or how do you do it?

I should also just confirm that you're alright with me referencing this work in my paper and showing your wonderful graphic to my "Governing Global Food and Agriculture" class at the University of Waterloo during my presentation.

Thanks for all the help!
Rachel
p.s. do you take on masters students in this area of work?

me again - I'm not entirely clear on what the blue lines from Cargill to Hain-Celestial and French Meadow mean - could you explain or point me in the direction of some additional info??

Thanks!!
Rachel

Phil Howard's January 2008 set of these charts is now up on this web site.

The organic arena is moving at rapid speed as more and more business and people in general are jumping on the band-wagon relative to the explosion of natural and organic produce and products. There are a host of pros and cons associated with what company is doing what and to the impact that it has on the direct health of anyone in the know or simply curious as to the safe-guards in what we consume.

The food industry is the first line of offense and defense in ensuring that what we consume does little or no harm to our physical, emotional and psychological nature as human beings with an absolute need to be nourished. It is critically important to know who is doing what and who owes what in the scheme of things, as it is now more than ever no short supply of corporate greed moving into the platform of holistic and alternative approaches to cash in on the organic trend where once upon a time the grass-root natural food cooperatives had a footing as such paving the way for a new kind of market where stockholders are the prime target rather than the everyday consumer.

Thanks for continuing your works in the area of organic awareness and helping us understand the bigger picture that is cultivating on Wall Street.

Julius
Development