Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
cessing corn, using sulfuric acid in the final step of production. Citric acid is widely used in processed
foods, including in organic foods and beverages, as a preservative and flavor enhancer.
It is not surprising that Cargill has teamed up with the large organic food company Hain Celestial, which
uses Cargill's “enhanced” ingredients in processed foods. In 2003 the companies announced a strategic
alliance. Irwin Simon, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of the Hain Celestial Group, said
in the joint press release, “By combining our expertise, we bring two industry leaders together to focus
on the development of the next generation of functional beverages, one of the hottest categories serving
today's health-conscious consumers.” Ted Ziemann, president of Cargill Health & Food Technologies, ad-
ded, “We are excited about the opportunities to explore new formulations with our family of ingredient
brands.” Among the Hain Celestial products that use Cargill ingredients are Rice Dream, Soy Dream, and
WestSoy nondairy beverages.
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Hain Celestial, the second-largest natural and organic food company in the country, was originally foun-
ded in 1926. It was reorganized in 1993 by Simon—who had honed his management skills at Slim-Fast
and Häagen-Dazs—and has been expanded through more than a dozen mergers and acquisitions. Today
Hain earns half a billion dollars in revenue annually and has fifty food and personal care brands. While
Hain's top customer is still Whole Foods, 70 percent of its products are mass-marketed at grocery chains
and other outlets.
In 2010 mass-market retailers sold 54 percent of organic food. This figure does not include organic
private-label sales—products sold under a brand name owned exclusively by a retail store—a growing seg-
ment of organics. Products sold under store brands are not unique to the store, because they are manufac-
tured by companies that supply their product to multiple outlets. Information about private-label products
is usually not disclosed by retail chains, so sales figures and other data are not available. Requests about
private-label manufacturing made to the manufacturers of organic food during the course of writing this
topic netted little information. General Mills did respond that its organic subsidiaries do provide private-
label products.
Dairy is the organic sector most strongly affected by private-label sales. Nearly 75 percent of the con-
ventional milk market is from private-label sales, and organic milk is following the same path. Dean Foods,
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