CHICAGO, Ill. – Organic pioneers need to stop fretting about new settlers and start getting on with more important tasks, says the founder of a 23-year-old organic firm.
Gary Hirshberg, who calls himself the CE-YO of Stonyfield Farm, the third largest yogurt brand in the United States, said the organic industry is up in arms about the increased presence of large corporations in their sector.
“There is a lot of people who think that Wal-Mart’s entry into organics is the end of the world. I think it is the beginning of the world. I think it means we have arrived,” he said.
Read Also
Russian wheat exports start to pick up the pace
Russia has had a slow start for its 2025-26 wheat export program, but the pace is starting to pick up and that is a bearish factor for prices.
Hirshberg’s May 9 presentation at the All Things Organic conference was supposed to be about the future of organics but he got sidetracked and spent most of his half hour delivering a stern lecture about past behaviour.
“I think a great many of us have been hung up on being a movement. We don’t have time for that anymore,” he said.
The New Hampshire businessperson and organic pioneer said it is time to stop burdening the Organic Trade Association with infighting about companies like Horizon Organic, manufacturer of the top-selling organic milk in the U.S., and a wholly owned subsidiary of Dean Foods.
Organic purists have accused Horizon of running factory farms that are ignoring the founding principles of organics.
Hirshberg disagrees with Horizon’s bigger-is-better approach to organics but he added that companies like Horizon and Wal-Mart are doing “net good” by pouring advertising dollars into the industry, helping to raise the profile of organics.
In 2003, Groupe Danone, a French corporation that owns the brands Dannon yogurt and Evian water, purchased a majority position in Hirshberg’s own company, although he said it is a unique relationship where he retains majority board control of the firm.
Fighting the corporate tide is a lost cause that distracts from more important tasks like convincing politicians on Capitol Hill that organics is worth supporting, said Hirshberg.
The industry needs to assemble “hard, unassailable, bullet-point, sound bite facts” about the benefits of organics.
Hirshberg would like to see a research emphasis on how the sector can help address the climate change problem, which he said is as compelling an argument for the industry as the absence of toxins in the food supply.
The industry hasn’t done its homework on that issue and many others that he feels could wake up the American consciousness and get the public onboard with organics.
Organic agriculture needs to lay down hardcore political, financial and scientific arguments about why it deserves support from Washington.
Hirshberg told his audience there is no room for “flimsy or mushy thinking,” adding that it is time to morph organics from a grassroots activism movement into an “institutionalized passion” along the lines of the National Rifle Association of America or the Mormon Church, a statement that drew gasps of horror from some delegates.
“That is difficult for those of us who are used to being revolutionaries,” he acknowledged. “The last thing we want to do is look in the mirror and see, ‘oh my gosh, I’ve got a suit on.’ “
But that is the harsh reality of an industry that is entering the mainstream market.
“Get over it,” advised Hirshberg.
