Organic food companies are issuing a call to arms for farmers to take up the fight against natural foods, a foe that is stealing sales and reducing farm incomes.
“Nothing is more important to your operation than correcting this misinformation with natural,” Tom Cowell, general manager of Growers International Organic Sales Inc., told delegates attending the Organic Connections 2010 conference in Saskatoon.
“That is having the greatest impact on the demand for your product right now and the value you receive.”
He said there is consumer confusion over the difference between organic and natural food products. Many consumers believe there is little difference.
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
Dag Falck, organic program manager with Nature’s Path Foods Inc., said there are no standards, regulations or certifiers associated with natural foods.
Many natural foods are made with crops that were produced using conventional agriculture methods.
“There is no intent or guarantee or effort gone into preventing pesticides from being in natural products,” said Falck.
Rogers Sugar uses the natural label on one of its main products but 95 percent of the sugar beets used are genetically modified, he said.
Cowell said food manufacturers often market a natural product under the same brand name as one of their organic lines, only at a 10 percent discount. Consumers are increasingly selecting the cheaper natural products over the more costly organic
TOM COWELL GROWERS INTERNATIONAL ORGANIC SALES INC.
alternatives.
Organic products used to outsell natural but that changed with the arrival of the 2008 global recession.
Falck thinks Canada’s organic industry needs to change the recently implemented national regulation to make natural synonymous with organic and subject to the same rules and oversight.
Cowell agreed but said it will take two or three years for that to happen. In the meantime, the industry needs to discredit natural products. He called for a national marketing campaign and for government action to outlaw use of the term.
Wally Hamm, general manager of Pro-Cert Organic Systems Ltd., a national certifier of organic food, took issue with Cowell’s approach.
“I don’t think we can do both – bring natural into the fold as a regulated term when we’re going to spend three or four years discrediting it first,” he said.
Cowell said there was no downside to discrediting natural because firms can always use the organic term. But there is a huge downside in doing nothing over the next three years while organic markets are steadily eroding.
Falck said the industry won’t succeed in discrediting natural products but will succeed in subjecting natural foods to the same rigours as organic foods.
“I think we should put all of our eggs in that basket.”
He said farmers need to take action before the natural food industry develops its own standards and regulations.
