Where Rainbow Grocery $ really goes
Happy Earth Day everyone! Here's a little present for you to print out and hang on your fridge.
GOOD Magazine put together a very handy guide to the big bad corporations that have co-opted the natural food companies you know and love. It's sad, folks. Some, like the Odwalla-Coca Cola connection aren't breaking news, but man, I didn't know Dagoba was in bed with Hershey.
My Earth Day resolution: buy local, local, local.
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Comments (5)
What makes it sad? If anything is going to allow high market penetration by 'organic' foods, it will be the influence of large food corporations. The adoption of organic and natural foods by the mainstream companies of the world should be celebrated by the proponents of natural foods. They've got the marketing, manufacturing, and transportation infrastructure to make organic food part of the daily American's consumption.
Posted by Miguel | April 22, 2008 06:01 PM
It makes me sad because I don't want to give my dollars to Dean when it seems like I'm giving them to an Organic Cow in Vermont. I want to buy my hand cream from Roxanne Quimby, not Clorox. I want to know my dollar is going to a person or a place that had an idea and came up with a good product to meet the need. Unfortunately, these small companies do such smashing jobs and are enough of a market force that they're purchased by other companies who gets to reap the profits from doing the right thing (or seeming to do the right thing) in one sector or its business, and the wrong thing in all the other sectors.
Posted by Amanda![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 22, 2008 06:31 PM
Rainbow Grocery's wages, taxes and profits all stay in San Francisco unlike Safeway, Harvest Market and Whole Foods.
We should all buy local whenever we can, and I'd wager a significant chunk of Rainbow's product line is local. As in everything, the first 80% is easy, getting the last 20% right is going to kill you.
-marc
Posted by marc | April 23, 2008 12:25 PM
I honestly think it's very hard to change anything by your individual buying habits. We may feel better as individuals when we buy local, buy organic, buy "sustainable", but as individuals we are all but powerless when rendered to voting with our dollars. Getting people to do the right thing with their purchasing power is like herding cats...and when we're up against corporate marketing dollars, those cats will almost always walk the other way, happily meowing their way into the arms of the marketers.
That's not to say that ethical consumerism doesn't have a place. But there has to be an element of statism/democracy too. "One person, one vote" is more likely to lead to a good outcome than "one dollar one vote." Combining the two approaches is probably best, eh?
Posted by joewmorse![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 23, 2008 01:12 PM
OK, so maybe I should have "hit" Whole Foods and Trader Joes and Safeway with my title, because they contract more with the bigger organic and natural foods outlets -- probably because they are owned by other companies and use the same distribution systems.
Honestly, I shop almost exclusively at Rainbow and I see some of these brands on the shelves there, too. If I'm going to be a hyper-discerning consumer, I want to know what to avoid -- don't you? I tend to assume that if it's on the shelves at Rainbow, it's been vetted by the co-op and the customers and has earned the right to be there, but maybe I'm wrong.
Posted by Amanda![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 23, 2008 02:06 PM