Natural and organic personal care products are cleaning up right now, with sales having increased 17% from 2006 to more than $7 billion last year, according to Nutrition Business Journal. To further capitalize on this success and gain a leg up in the industry, many companies have begun jockeying for market position by addressing the issue of authenticity — why they’re the real deal, and why others aren’t.

Just today, for example, the Natural Products Association unveiled its own “natural” certification for personal care products during a press conference at New York City’s Mandarin Oriental hotel. Along with representatives from Burt’s Bees, Aubrey Organics and other participating companies, the association laid out details for what it claims is a higher standard that will allow consumers to identify products that are truly made of natural ingredients. Manufacturers that bear the new seal must meet a host of guidelines, including utilizing ingredients that are renewable, pose no human health risks, and are at least 95% natural. The seal should start showing up on products in stores within the next couple weeks, according to the NPA.

“Finally, we can end the confusion about what natural is and what natural isn’t,” said Mike Indursky, chief marketing officer with Burt’s Bees.

Running along the same lines, earlier this week Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps — an all-natural icon that’s been producing soaps for 60 years — filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against several of its competitors, alleging that they’re falsely claiming to be organic. Jason, Estee Lauder, Avalon, Nature’s Gate and others will face litigation unless they commit to reformulate or drop their organic claims, according to Dr. Bronner’s.

Leaving no question about his sentiment on the issue, David Bronner, president of the Dr. Bronner’s brand, said in a statement that these companies have been “screwing over organic consumers”.

The ambiguity of “natural” has created headaches throughout the food industry, since outside of the meat industry there is no definition of the term. In the personal care category, neither natural nor organic claims are federally regulated. The Natural Products Association claims their new claim will end the confusion, but will consumers really be able to tell the difference at the retail level? In an industry that’s announcing and denouncing claims more and more, it could just be another addition to the clutter.

Public skepticism about bisphenol A (BPA) has been a lingering issue in the retail industry for some time now. Studies have linked the chemical, which is used to strengthen plastic and appears in baby bottles and numerous other reusable containers, to various ill effects through the years, and so some manufacturers and retailers have eliminated it from their products. Federal agencies, however, have kept the waters calm by maintaining that low levels of BPA are harmless.

A report issued earlier this week could change all that. The National Toxicology Program, a federal organization that’s part of the National Institutes of Health, stated that the chemical may cause cancer and other ailments. This after lab tests on rats found that BPA exposure created a host of problems including precancerous tumors and hormone imbalances.

The significance here is that the NTP’s report represents the first acknowledgement by the government of risks associated with BPA. For many environmental groups, it’s vindication. The plastics industry, in response, points out that the results are only preliminary.

No matter what the final ruling might be, consumers, retailers and politicians have decided they’re not taking any chances. Stores throughout Canada are working feverishly to remove products containing BPA from shelves in anticipation of the country declaring the chemical a potentially dangerous toxin, according to Toronto’s Globe and Mail. Companies that produce BPA-free containers, meanwhile, have experienced explosive growth and should see demand increase even more with this latest report.

Demand like this presents a tempting opportunity, but retailers shouldn’t get ahead of themselves. The NTP will publish its finalized report this summer, and it’s certain that the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency will eventually have their say, too.

The best course right now might be to review categories to see what items contain BPA, and then be ready to make changes if it comes to that. In some cases — like with baby bottles — it probably pays to make alterations now.

Some interesting developments from around the world regarding diet, health and weight:

According to a story on Bloomberg.com, employers in Japan have until 2012 to reduce the number of overweight workers and their dependents by 10%. Those who cannot slim down their employees face fines that will be used to offset eldercare programs. Body mass, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and smoking will be taken into account.

The government estimates that half of Japan’s male population over age 40 (and more than 20% of women) will be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, a weight-related complex of illnesses that can include diabetes. Until recently, it was an almost unheard of condition in the island nation.

In the case of men, fines will kick in if his waist measures more than 33.5 inches. And no “sucking it in” is allowed.

Meanwhile, in France, lawmakers are considering legislation that would make it a crime to promote extreme thinness. The bill is part of a continuing response to the 2006 death of a Brazilian model attributed to anorexia. In a country where fashion reigns supreme, it’s a big change that has met with some opposition from designers (probably men with waists of more than 33.5 inches).

The legislation would give judges the power to imprison and fine offenders up to $47,000 if found guilty of “inciting others to deprive themselves of food” to an “excessive” degree, Valery Boyer, the lawmaker who authored the bill, told the Associated Press.

France isn’t even the first country to pursue this issue. Spain currently has a law than bans severely thin models from the catwalk.

It’s upsetting that some governments feel compelled to legislate wellness. It makes me glad that, with all its difficulties and policy mistakes, I live in the United States. Here, living healthfully is still an option.

Well, sure. But maybe not for long, judging by what we’re seeing lately with this wily economy.

Right now the price of conventional milk is higher than it’s been in years, at around $20 per hundred weight, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Compare that to this same time last year, when the payout was just over $13 per hundred weight. This is great news for a lot of farmers.

The benefits don’t extend to organic dairy, though. And the current situation has the potential to sour organic milk supplies in the not-too-distant future. Industry experts say that, with conventional prices this high, fewer and fewer farmers want to undertake the onerous three-year conversion process required to get herds certified organic by the Department of Agriculture. To many, it’s just not worth the headache.

Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Dairy Producers Alliance, says the problem is actually twofold: Conventional prices are too high, and organic prices are too low. He estimates that organic milk payouts in the northeast average $28 per hundred weight right now.

As a result, organic supply is stagnant.

“There’s nobody out there looking to transition,” said Maltby, in an interview. “And there won’t be until the price goes up or, alternatively, the conventional price drops back to where it was a year ago.”

Farmers who have made the conversion are being hit hard with the lower organic prices, he added. Many have had to run through lines of credit or dip into their savings to purchase supplies (including expensive organic feed, which is also affected as grain farmers decide to raise in-demand, ethanol crops). They’ve started working longer hours and are trying to grow their own forage to save costs.

Maltby and others have appealed to manufacturers like organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm to raise prices. And companies have responded — though not to the extent that many organic dairy farmers would like to see.

A supply shortage hasn’t hit supermarkets yet. But it very well could by as early as fall. Retailers should take note of Maltby’s warning: “I think by September or October there will be signs up in grocery stores saying that there’s a shortage of organic milk,” he said.

We last visited the issue of hormone-free milk labeling in January, when Pennsylvania officials backed off a ruling that would have banned the use of “rBST-free” labels. It was a win for consumers, who protested that they have the right to know what is (or isn’t) in the dairy products they buy.

The battle is far from over. Last week, Wal-Mart announced that it would source all of its Great Value private label milk from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones. Given the retailer’s size, this is a big move for the industry. But don’t expect Monsanto, which developed the growth hormone, to go down without a fight. The ag-tech company — a lumbering giant in its own right — is going toe-to-toe right now with Kroger in Ohio, where early last month governor Ted Strickland issued an emergency rule that banned unverified hormone-free claims. Kroger sources its own brand of milk from cows not given rBST, and wants to tell its customers as much.

Kroger, Wal-Mart and others say that they’re responding to consumer concerns about supplementing the development of food-producing animals. “We are getting a lot of calls on this,” Kroger spokeswoman Meghan Glynn told the Cincinnati Enquirer. Monsanto, on the other hand, argues that adding hormone-free labels implies that the product is unsafe, when in fact the FDA okayed the use of these hormones back in 1993.

No matter what the FDA says, consumers are becoming increasingly wary of biotech encroaching on their food. Nine out of 10 of them want genetically modified food to be labeled. And who can forget the outcry against the FDA’s decision to allow cloned animals into the food chain?

So far, federal regulators have declined Monsanto’s request to get involved in the controversy. The one thing the company forgets — and retailers (to their great credit) remember — is that this is not about milk labels, or even hormones. It’s about the customer.

Talk all you want about health and wellness. Safety comes first. That’s why we were interested to read that the Food and Drug Administration is planning to open offices in China, staffed by eight full-time regulators.

The officers will be attached to diplomatic posts in the country, specifically the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou. The announcement comes in the wake of significant recalls involving pet food, medication and toothpaste, among other products.

“Our efforts to fill permanent FDA positions in China are a significant step toward ensuring access to safe food, drugs and medical devices in the global market,” said Murray Lumpkin, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for international and special programs.

Boy, did he get that right. China has emerged as an important, critical resource for imports, including organic commodities. Yet its products are capable of killing unwitting consumers (both animal and human).

The timing is good. China is under tremendous pressure to clean up its act in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympics. If it wants the good will to continue after the flame is extinguished and the athletes return home, it’s going to have to start opening up a bit more.

With cloned meat, Monsanto sugar beets and the like making headlines these days, it seems GMOs are once again on the minds of consumers and the food industry. Judging by the buzz at this week’s Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, companies are looking to take action.

One organization that’s taking the lead is the Non GMO Project, a nonprofit working to establish a voluntary standard and label claim for GMO-free products. Right now they’re campaigning for retailer support and signing up manufacturers interested in completing the standard’s certification process, which they’ve posted for public comment until April 29th. The organization hopes to have a working standard in place by Fall 2009.

The Non GMO Project’s standard looks to address three areas: traceability, segregation, and sourcing. Each step focuses on keeping a product out of contact with genetically modified ingredients, and accredited labs throughout the country will do the testing to make sure that happens.

Supporters said that a certification like this can’t come soon enough. The majority of American commodity crops contain GMO ingredients, which the FDA has OK’d but have been linked to harmful health effects in some studies.

“I don’t believe we’re winning this war,” said Michael Funk, CEO of United Natural Foods and one of the founders of the Non GMO Project, during a presentation on the topic. He went on to tell audience members to “Educate consumers. Talk to your neighbors and make them aware of what’s going on.”

A lot of the top players in the natural and organics industry are behind the project: Whole Foods, Nature’s Path, Organic Valley, UNFI and White Wave Foods, to name a few. So the issue is definitely gaining momentum, not to mention publicity.

But for supermarket retailers, GMO labeling like this is a tricky prospect. After all, with so many products that do contain GMOs on shelves, how do you promote a label like the Non GMO Project’s without disparaging much of your inventory? And perhaps the most difficult hurdle is defining that term “GMO” for consumers.

Still, the organic industry had many of these same challenges, and look at where it’s ended up.

Pesticide and other chemical residues have long been one of the primary issues driving organic produce purchases. The industry got a real taste of that with the Alar controversy in 1989. Some industry observers even point to that event as a milestone in developing demand for organics.

A just-released report by The Organic Center puts some impressive numbers behind the argument in favor of organic fruits and vegetables. Using a federally approved index, the study concluded that converting the nation’s 8 million acres of produce farms to organic would reduce dietary risk from pesticides by roughly 97%. Of course, the number also relies on Americans eating imported produce that is certified organic, too.

The report listed examples of residue counts on several items. A conventional spinach sample in 2006 was found to have nine residues, a kale sample had 10, and a raisin sample contained 11; almost half the conventional peach samples in 2006 contained five or more residues; and more than one-third of conventional fruit and vegetable samples in 2006 contained multiple residues.

Consumers have known about the use of pesticides for years. The federal government, which tests fruits and vegetables, monitors pesticide use and regulates which chemicals can be used. Washing all produce before consumption eliminates just about every trace of pesticides, we’re told, and fear of pesticides should not keep people from eating more fresh produce.

They’re right. No one has sprouted a third ear or anything weird like that. But now we find there are prescription drugs in our tap water (see the prior post) and there are new worries about the pollutants in our air. It seems we’ve been ingesting a lot more artificial, man-made elements than we first thought.

Knowing this might cause the public to start demanding reductive measures wherever possible. Since pesticides are perhaps the most well known of our human-intervention efforts, it would follow that this might be the area they want to start.

Late last week the Humane Society of the United States announced that it had secured enough signatures to put an animal cruelty measure on the ballot in California this November.

The “Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act” would outlaw three of the most controversial methods used in farm operations: Veal crates for calves, battery cages for egg-laying hens and gestation crates for breeding pigs.

Past efforts in which the HSUS took part have met with some success — gestation crates were banned in Florida as of 2002, and Arizona outlawed veal and pig crates in 2006. There are two reasons to believe this latest effort will succeed as well: It’s California (volunteers collected 800,000 signatures, nearly twice as many as required); the state is also home to the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company, were undercover activists recently filmed downer cattle being abused with forklifts and bang sticks.

Investigations like the Hallmark case are accelerating consumer demand for food animals that are raised and slaughtered with compassion. Demand for cage-free eggs in particular is growing. More and more retailers (including California-based Safeway and Trader Joe’s) have already gone cage-free, and are in the process of adopting the other measures as well.

What about everyone else? The law wouldn’t take effect until 2015, ostensibly to give producers enough time to transition to more humane systems. In all likelihood, consumer demand will have eclipsed the need for any legislation by then.

The carbon offsetting industry has enjoyed unregulated growth over the past couple of years, but it appears the party may soon be over.

In that time, a number of offset providers have been exposed for fraudulent acts ranging from substituting credits, to failure to follow through on eco-projects. The lack of oversight allowed firms to take advantage of consumers and even entire companies who sought to participate in the movement with good intentions. Now that problems have been uncovered, action is being taken to quickly button up guidelines and best practices in order to save the image of offsets as a legitimate method of reducing the carbon footprint.

In November The Climate Group, a London-based nonprofit, established the Voluntary Carbon Offset Standard, meant to serve as a rulebook for the industry. Then last month the Federal Trade Commission held a hearing on the issue — its first in a series of hearings focused on green marketing.

Momentum is continuing to build. Yesterday the Center for Resource Solutions and its widely recognized Green-e label announced the first voluntary certification program for carbon offsets sold at the retail level. This new process follows an offset through its entire lifecycle, making sure it’s properly labeled and that it actually does, say, provide for the planting of trees in Brazil’s rainforests.

“Consumers are going to want transparency. They’re going to want to know where their money went,” said Jeff Swenerton, spokesman for the Center for Resource Solutions.

A certification like this serves mainly as a marketing tool, but that shouldn’t downplay its significance. Consumers want assurances that the credits they’re purchasing at their local supermarket are truly going where they want them to. As these certification guidelines hit the market, it might be time for all businesses to check their offset programs against the standards, to see how they measure up. This is one time you don’t want to get caught with your plants down.