The news just gets worse and worse for the corporate processed food makers.
Earlier this week, Target Corp., a major retailer of food, clothing, and such served notice on the factory-food producers to take their processed stuff and, well, stuff it.
In a radical move, according to The Wall Street Journal, Representatives from Campbell Soup Co., General Mills Inc., Kelloggs Co. and others were told that the retailer doesnt want to put as much money and effort into promoting some of their products as it did in the past Target said it wants to do less with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Corn Flakes and more with granola and yogurt. In effect, Target was saying to the big producers, “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?”
This all follows up on ongoing reports from the big processed food producers of deteriorating financial results.
Part of the reason Targets move is so significant is that it foretells cracks in the corporate retailer practice of using slotting fees, which are large charges to food producers just to get prime shelf space on retailer shelves. Targets new message is that slotting fees are a losers game, because they leave the marketplace out of the decision-making process of retailer food offerings. Slotting fees have represented easy revenue for food retailers and easy sales for corporate producers.
But places like Target are coming to realize they are losing customers who no longer want Campbells chicken noodle soup and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The slotting fees are no good without the customers to buy the junk.
Whats also clear is that the shift away from the processed food is accelerating. Why? Because we are seeing a blizzard of information explaining to consumers why the processed stuff is bad and nutrient-dense food from sustainable producers is healthy.
Thousands of ordinary consumers are participating in online programs like Real Food and Unprocessed Food challenges that encourage long-time Cinnamon Toast Crunch eaters to avoid such junk altogether. And increasingly, these people are buying their food via CSAs, farmers markets, and food clubs–completely outside the corporate retailer system.
Plus, new books keep coming out with advice and background about the corrupt nature of the factory food system, and advice about eating healthy food. One recent book about the former is The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by Janisse Ray. One of the most chilling sections is her history of how big chemical companies decided to buy up all the small seed producers during the 1980s and 1990s, as a way to gain control of the food system.
Another new book, about eating healthy comes from Kelly Moeggenborg, also known as Kelly the Kitchen Kop. The book, Real Food for Rookies, explains the health dangers that come from the processed food, and how nutrient-dense foods help counter the problems. Equally useful are her many ideas for how consumers on tight food budgets can substitute real food for junk, for the same money.
To the corporate producers, these and dozens of other books and documentaries are subverting Americans about the power of food to help create good health. The problem the big food producers face is theyve not really had to compete seriously for customers in the food-is-food-is-food environment that has pervaded our culture in the post-World-War-II era. All that is changing rapidly, and the corporate junk food producers dont really know what to do.
Joel Salatin poses an ethical-business dilemma that relates to this post. He’s inquiring as to whether producers of good food from sustainable farms should exploit the ever-more-visible crumbling of our factory food system by raising their prices.
I’ve long felt producers of good food should view themselves as business owners, building growing, sustainable, profitable enterprises. That means you serve your marketplace with quality products, and are rewarded appropriately. It doesn’t mean you necessarily exploit individual crises that occur, but rather operate with a long-term perspective.
This from the Polyface Farm Facebook page:
From Joel Salatin, 5/21/15
Whenever something farm-related hits national news broadcasts, you can be sure it’s big.
Avian influenza is now in 15 midwestern states and has resulted in a government-mandated
extermination of 35 million chickens. If we assume 10,000 chickens fill a tractor trailer, that’s
3,500 tractor trailers full of chickens.
And today the major news broadcasts were predicting Americans would pay $7-$8 BILLION
more for eggs in the next year due to the shortage. This set me to wondering, and I would love
some counsel on this.
As you know, here at Polyface we sell eggs. But several years ago when avian flu hit Asia
and Europe, British researchers discovered that if a chicken gets two blades of fresh grass a day,
they’re immune to avian influenza. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I know that when 1,000
tractor trailer loads of chickens and turkeys were destroyed in our area during the last outbreak
in 2004, the industry desperately tried to find a positive case in backyard flocks, outdoor flocks,
and among wild birds, and couldn’t find any. I know the industry and government agents
were disappointed.
Polyface is routinely accused of being elitist, charging too much for eggs. Our chefs–even
the good ones–cry if we raise the price a quarter a dozen. So here we have an interesting
situation. Who knows how high retail store prices will spike?
The fact that here at Polyface, through good management, pasture protocols, and providing
a habitat that honors the chicken-ness of the chicken, we may be immune to this disease, is it
ethical for us to ride the industry’s escalating price increase? Taxpayers are indemnifying the
farmers for their destroyed birds. Supermarket prices will increase substantially.
How do you feel about being taxed to bail out the industry’s fragility? If we’ve figured out a
way to keep our chickens healthy, what’s that worth to society? What’s it worth in the marketplace?
It’s not an easy question. If we say we live in an independent sphere that does not intersect
with the industry’s successes and failures, should we not just ignore escalating market prices even
if we become the lowest priced option? On the other hand, how do we get compensated for building
immunity into the farm and food system if we don’t recognize the value in offering a more secure
option? Is it fair to say that we should watch the industry’s prices go through the roof and be unable
to capitalize on market shortages–and the very real increase in customers that will come as a result
of renewed fear of industrial eggs? What if this shortage creates a shortage for us? Do we then
ride the spike? Or is that unduly piling on others’ misfortunes?
The interesting thing in all of this is that you will not hear anyone in the industry, or anyone in
the government, question the orthodoxy of factory farming. To question factory farming is to question
the very essence of other orthodoxies: feeding the world, cheap food, economies of scale, efficiency.
And so here at Polyface, we really believe we have an antidote to this whole bird sickness fiasco, but
we have no voice, no credibility, and what’s worse, no real clarity about how to respond as a business.
We have shared the reasons for our beef increases and pork increases during recent spikes, but
that is because when we buy piggies or calves, those farmers want to ride the spike up. In those cases
we are not an independent island, living in an independent universe. So it’s easy to raise prices to
cover our newly escalating costs.
Interestingly, where Polyface may feel the brunt of this is not in our layers and eggs (since we’re
hatching most of our pullets now) but rather in our broiler birds. I don’t know how many of these destroyed
chickens have been egg or meat birds–in the industry, they don’t mix at all. I imagine that at least some
have been in the meat industry, and that may well affect the price of our broiler chicks. Time will tell.
If this epizootic directly affects our costs, then changing prices is a no-brainer. But if it does not
directly affect our expenses since we’ve gone to great lengths to create an independent universe, is
it ethical or moral to raise our prices consistent with the rise in conventional egg prices. Many of you
know I’m not a pure capitalist. But neither am I purely altruistic. Hence the question. What do you think?
I think I may have seen a little sneak preview of the challenge faced bybthevother side. A couple f days ago, my raw milk inspector and I had a very sincere chit chat about our test and hold program. He shared with me that there have been big changes being discussed inside the FDA. Evidently, the more pasteurized milk that gets tested…the more they are finding listeria!!! He went to say that Blue Bell is a bell weather event that is bringing on a new reality check. It appears that the more that processors check for listeria in pasteurized dairy products…the more they find it. He said that the deaths from Blue Bell were ” all old people” and that our national food policy should not be driven by the most immune depressed and he agreed with me that the more we chase the sterile curve…the more immune endangered we become.
I know that the FDA is schizophrenic….on one hand they mandate zero pathogens….then they fund the Human Genome project that preaches biodiversity as the very basis of life itself and our health on earth. The inspector said…zero pathogens is not realistic and pursuit of sterility will take us to a dangerous place. He just lowered his head and agreed that we had some very good arguments with what we were doing with low risk raw milk and our food safety plan.
As we know in the EU zero pathogens is not the standard and in fact listeria is allowed in some foods. Deaths and ilness are not pursued with litigenous vigor and food liability appears to be an American thing. There is a real problem when the FDA is stronger and more powerful than our own representative government and they operate with impunity. It is so powerful, that it can not be changed…instead the FDAmust be replaced by simply building a system outside of the FDA that dollar votes it into the dust heap of history…along with its corporate sponsors. Know Your Farmer…Drink raw milk!!
A friend told me about a time when she had extra green beans in her garden. She told someone who she knew was having financial difficulties, to come over and get them. The response? “You mean I have to come over and pick them?” Did they want her to cook them up, and serve them too? She has also complained about going to the grocery store, where she looks for ‘bargains’. She gets to the checkout lane, and there’s someone in front of her with a cart full of brand name items. Then they whip out the EBT card. That one sends her into orbit.
Thanks Tyrannocaster. The Fortune article is a very good overview of how top corporate food execs are grappling with the earthquake happening around them. Funny how some are dispensing with the chemicals and GMOs and such, but insisting that the foods taste the same as they did with all the chemicals and junk (like Hershey). They don’t want to risk irritating consumers by possibly making the foods taste more like real food. The corporations are also bidding up the prices of small real-food enterprises for acquisition. It’s a good time to be starting a food business!
http://www.bing.com/images/search q=corporate+ownership+of+organic+brands&view=detailv2&&&id=D19F68453F1936CD613F7BF574F4ABDF1B51AE12&selectedIndex=0&ccid=8irDKXAF&simid=608025992261666191&thid=JN.vUa%2bw6ONVM3qFKsjgS4uzw&ajaxhist=0
As long as we have the dollar to vote and the information available to make choices….we are all good. We just need some time to recover from years of lies and the FDA siding with corporate fake food engineering & concocting recipe makers instead of siding with the gut, our children, nutrition and the consumers.
For some reason the link went into orbit!! here is it again.
http://www.cornucopia.org/
There is also a chart showing who owns which seed companies. I don’t look at any of them very often because it makes me angry. 8-[
http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/joel-greeno-wisconsin-s-dairyland-disaster/article_9c5af403-5d6f-5dcf-bc3f-c331a8ebf111.html
out of half a century witnessing degeneration of the so-called “Christian churches”, my ANSWER is : “anti-nomian-ism” … the false doctrine that “the Law of God is done away with”. Race traitors in the pulpits emasculated white people ; over 3 generations the nation was separated from our inheritance.
and since you mention “hair-less-ness” = is it mere co-incidence that the Bible prophesies “in that day, baldness will be upon every head”? A handy illustration being the militarized cops … for whom the neo-Nazi look is so fashionable. Ham-merica is ruled by people who hate us
When you are selling within an oligopoly, you know you can’t speak up too loudly to the oligarchs who are buying your product, for fear they will cut you out of the market entirely. Dairymen have been operating within this oligopoly for so long, they’ve completely forgotten what a market economy is like. They’re like slaves, knowing they must act nice to avoid being beaten.
What’s mystifying to me is that so many dairymen have been watching people like Mark McAfee thrive economically by selling unpasteurized milk, and yet most refuse to consider making the transition. Just tired, I suppose.
As you say, they may be tired.
I was tired. Of tortured milk. Of PMO milk.
[A recent pregnancy was going into difficulty while following “Doctor’s orders” to the letter. (Like we’re supposed to, right?) A visit to the home folks ensued (who hit the ceiling when they heard what the “Doctor’s orders” were). Things were set straight as they had always been (using knowledge received from preceding generations) including raw dairy products. Happy parents, happy baby now. Go figure. Raw dairy played a positive role. “Doctor’s orders” played a very negative role.]
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Would you rather do business at the lowest profitable denominator or… invest in the integrity of raw food distribution systems if they were legal across state lines? Mark, there’s your new mission should you decide to decline it.
Lets just say that I really do think that this argument will hit the target with the FDA…they have no basis to argue that raw butter is a killer food or even an illness causing food. There is no data…..none. Their own websites claim that butter does not support pathogen growth! Their own websites talk about the PH, salt levels, and low moisture qualities of butter being a substrate that will not support pathogen growth. Lets just say that this is a win…the courts have little to prove otherwise. If there had been an American Butter Society in 1987, the courts would not have included raw butter into the federal ban on interstate commerce. Raw cheeses were exempted and that is exactly what should have happened to raw butter!! Both share the class 4 designation and both should have been exempted and allowed over state lines. Whoooops! It took 28 years to catch this overbroad court error. BUTTER Late than Never.
I am very much looking forward to reading the sneaky, cheaty arguments that the FDA will use to try and duck this silver BUTTER bullet. If they do try and lie like they always do…the courts will smell that dead rat for sure. It is so clear!
Things are falling apart at the FDA as they try their best to maintain their composure as pasteurized milk fails in the market place ( another 3.5% loss of market share last year ) and listeria found in post pasteurized dairy products is causing serious cause for pause.
It is a great time to be on the right side of history and nutrition as BIG FOOD goes under self inflicted psychoanalysis in an attempt to figure out what happened to their market share and lost consumer trust.
The inspector said…zero pathogens is not realistic and pursuit of sterility will take us to a dangerous place.
David,
They certainly are tired especially of all the bureaucratic meddling and double standards!
Food is dirt cheap in North America thanks to consumers who are obsessed with cheap food, politicians who take advantage of that obsession and insane farmers who subsidize the cost of food with off farm income and increasing debt load. Most of the farmers I know including myself fall in the latter scenario and we continue to farm not because there is a living to be made from it, but because we enjoy it, its a lifestyle choice.
There are over 40 Amish families who own farm properties in our township and none of them are making a living off the farm. They all have off farm income. Every single one of them!!!
Without off farm income the majority of farmers would be living below the poverty line.
Unless you live in America and grow cotton in the desert.
Give this a few seconds to download. Verrrrrry interesting, not to mention angering. https://projects.propublica.org/killing-the-colorado/story/arizona-cotton-drought-crisis
http://muchmorethanfood.com/blog/a-ruckus-over-raw-milk-harmful-healthy-or-hype/
Mark, I definitely agree with Bonnie’s concern about the difficulty of making sense of the CDC data. I have made that point many times. Unfortunately, she goes on to prove her own point about the difficulty of interpreting the data by constructing a table that doesn’t make any sense. She compares two time periods–one a 14-year period (1993-2006) and the other a six-year period (2007-2012), as if they are equal. Then she shows whether illnesses and hospitalizations went up or down. She suggests she’s comparing apples to apples, when she isn’t, since they are entirely different lengths of time. Truly comparing the two periods on a per-year average basis suggests that the average number of illnesses per year increased.
It’s no surprise that the opaque CDC data leads to misleading analyses. That’s the devious intention. Just another unfortunate outgrowth of the CDC (and FDA) war on raw milk.
http://www.cornucopia.org/2015/05/seeds-of-our-ancestors-seeds-of-life/
I don’t know if this will be of any use to you, but thought I’d share it anyway. I ran across something about “petting zoos”, and recall some of the comments here on that subject. I haven’t checked any of it out yet, so I’m not sure of the content on the website. I originally did not see this information online, but there was a link provided.
http://www.safeagritourism.com/