The Power of a Word

I love when someone says something and it just makes you stop and think…”why didn’t I think of that before”.  As I was sharing a cab ride with Tad, owner of Chopin vodka, we were discussing different marketing ideas from bottles, endorsements and specific wordage used to get consumers to buy the product.  You are probably guessing gluten free… well you are wrong and thats a whole other discussion….the word is Organic. With all of these products on the market and very little to distinguish what makes them different, companies have to devise a marketing ploy, if you will, to set them apart and seem to offer something special.

Organic means ” food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides”.  Well  how did most of our food get an organic statement on it.  Its not as if all farmers foresaw farming demands of the future or that over night things that were not considered organic turned into coined “organic”. it has been almost 22 years since the Organic Food Production Act of 1990 began developing a national rule of what could be marked as “Organic”.  One would think that that would not be a hard decision to figure out right?… wrong because you have to think of how many people that would affect… its not just the farmers but the grocery stores, consumers and those that are trading and investing.  Overall affecting the market value of food.  Sure some had to do with the philosophical debate on what organic  is and may be and what organic means in our modern day society.

It took 12 years for the “Final Rule” to become law! of course it did.  If anyone remembers the Alar scare that happened in 1989 with apples, it is no wonder why it took so long to want to pass regulations. I remember as a kid everyone telling me to not eat apples or to make sure they were really washed before we were allowed to eat them. Alar was thought to be one of the most potent cancer- causing substances in our food supply that is sprayed on apples to keep them on trees longer and look all pretty and shiny.  This spread like wild fire, as most horrifying stories do. Children were said to be at risk so a bunch of panicking parents bordering hysteria tried to ban ALL the APPLES and apple products! What is the worst that could happen … no apples?…20,00 apple growers suffered … even those that never used Alar.  Farmers went bankrupt, the government spent 9.5 million of taxpayer money to reimburse apple growers and stories that residue ended up on grapefruit as well,  which is not true since it is not a product designed for citrus, ended up affecting other farmers. You would have to eat 28,000 pounds of Alar treated apple each year for 70 years to have any effect.

So you see why the term organic took so long to be something anyone wanted to pass laws on since in would directly affect the nation. As easy as this was to be believed true, it seems that billions of dollars of marketing have convinced a large amount of people that the organic food they are eating is purely good and safe and that everything else is not.”of course the reality is much more complex and there are features of Organic production that are problematic for an environmental point of view. There are also farming methods that are better for the environment than organic, but the “Organic Brand ” is so strong that few consumers will ever believe this.”  Organic is only 0.7% of US cropland. How can that be so when so much of our Alcohol and food is “organic”. Part of the answer comes from imported organic food that comes from farms that have an annual visit with no actual residue testing which allows them to be certified. Also different ways of controlling weeds contribute more to pollution than using a small amounts of herbicide that is less toxic than table salt.

So, I am not saying that there are not great small local companies that don’t produce amazing quality organic products or that companies that are not organic certified don’t make wonderful products that aren’t equal and many times better than ” organic” companies.  I’m saying that the term organic is a misleading brand image that is marketed by mainstream consumer marketing companies. Just be smart and do a little research and stand behind brands that you would want your friends to drink! CHEERS!