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There probably aren’t that many people in the food industry who recognize the name Philip Howard. Many are familiar, however, with the colorful bubble graphics he creates every year that chart the structure of the organic industry. They’re easy-to-read guides to an ever-growing, ever-consolidating section of the supermarket — and they’re getting noticed by consumers.

Yesterday, in her Well blog for The New York Times, columnist Tara Parker-Pope wrote a post about Howard’s latest creation, an animated sequence showing acquisitions in the organic industry over time. Titled “When Big Business Eats Organic,” the piece discussed how large companies like General Mills and Hain Celestial own many beloved organic titles.

“These relationships aren’t very apparent,” Howard, an assistant professor of agriculture at Michigan State University, was quoted as saying.

Coverage like this is helping make the industry more transparent. Clorox’s buyout of Burt’s Bees last November appeared in all of the country’s major newspapers and zipped across the blogosphere. “I love BB products and am having a hard time in making a decision about if I will make future purchases of BB,” commented one consumer on a Chicago Tribune health blog. Coke’s recent 40% investment in Honest Tea generated similar buzz.

Companies like Clorox are responding to increasing consumer awareness about buyouts by launching sophisticated marketing campaigns. In February, Burt’s Bees started a “Natural Vs.” campaign, which sought to explain the term “natural” in the personal care category, and how Burt’s Bees upholds that standard.

Retailers are also responding, though not in the way you might think. A couple of manufacturers at last week’s Natural Products Expo West mentioned that supermarkets are looking for “new niche” products in the health and wellness category. They fear consumers might begin rejecting some products simply because they’ve been taken over by large corporations.

Of course, just because a company is big doesn’t mean they’ll exploit the smaller companies they acquire. In many cases, they can help that brand reach an audience it otherwise wouldn’t. Retailers should support the brands that are the ideal of authenticity, no matter who owns them.

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.

Our California roadtrip to Natural Products Expo West is over. We spent three full days in the aisles of the Anaheim Convention Center, visiting exhibitors, talking with retailers and looking for the Next Big Thing.

Among the top performers at this year’s show were products that were enhanced, infused or improved with the addition of ingredients like antioxidants, or omega-3 fatty acids. There was a lot of tea, chocolate and coffee with fair trade certification. Kid cuisine continued to show improvement with a new round of healthful snacks and meals. And there was a generous splash of value-added waters. Many touted higher pH’s. The alkaline formulations of 8.0 or more were promoted as more nourishing for cells.

If there’s a common thread that ties these disparate categories together, it’s that they represent the hottest movers in the supermarket today. What we saw this past week wasn’t groundbreaking, but retailers can take heart that the products they currently stock promise to get better, and there are still plenty of consumers eager to purchase these items.

There was not only plenty to see, but plenty to listen to. Author Michael Pollan delivered the keynote address at this year’s show, talking about “our national eating disorder.”

“Food-related, chronic diseases are what kill most of us in this country,” he said, noting we are becoming a Lipitor nation, a place where our Western diet causes Western diseases like diabetes.

Pollan’s hypothesis behind this phenomenon clearly resonated with attendees. America’s ongoing obsession with individual nutrients like fat and carbohydrates reduces the significance of whole foods, and the complex interactions between nutrients as they are consumed and metabolized by the body. The country believes in this approach, which he calls nutritionism.

The problem is we still know so little about the science of good eating. There has yet to emerge a definitive best practice to this art. And so, it’s better to keep things simple. Pollan put it this way: “Nutrition is like surgery in the 16th century. It has a lot of promise and is interesting to watch, but I wouldn’t get on the table just yet.”

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.

Water has become a fairly accurate barometer of society’s attitudes about health and sustainability. The fact that the human body is up to 75% water makes H2O safety an issue very close to our hearts… and in our hearts, and probably flowing through our hearts.

News that prescription drug residues were found in municipal and regional water systems throughout the United States is worrisome on several levels. Of course, what is the impact of this repeated, low-level exposure on the body, particularly young people? Even though the levels of the pharmaceuticals detected in the water supply were infinitesimal, consumers have voted very clearly with their dollars in favor of milk without hormones, produce without pesticides and meat without antibiotics. Those were detected teeny-tiny amounts, too.

Other disturbing aspects to this story: The lack of testing and the reluctance of the various water providers to talk about the subject; finding out that bottled water and home purifiers aren’t an effective option to tap water; and being reminded, yet again, that much of the water we drink is treated sewage (with many intervening steps for purification, etc., but the bottom line is it’s recycled).

What’s the retail food industry take on all this? Finding pharmaceutical residues in the supply casts the whole debate over tap water vs. bottled water in a new light. Before any more talk about plastic and bottles and litter, perhaps we should start with the product itself. Let’s first ask what it will take to make potable water itself sustainable.

Springtime: when the flora and fauna reemerge, the days grow longer, and Monsanto readies its latest genetically modified crop. This time around it’s sugar beets — “Roundup Ready” sugar beets, to be exact, engineered to withstand a key ingredient in the widely used herbicide (also made by Monsanto).

Among the critics of the new seeds — besides the Sierra Club and the Center for Food Safety — is a group called the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which represents close to 300 faith-based investors and more than $100 billion in capital. The center has urged its members and the public to appeal directly to 63 major food companies, asking them to ban the use of the GMO beets in their products.

The ICCR’s message is simple: Don’t mess with God’s creation. And they’ve been preaching it consistently over a great many issues. The organization is one of the more surprising — and influential — demographics to join the environmental movement over the past several years. From Muslims to Evangelicals, religious groups of all cloths have used the good word and some of their considerable legislative heft to speak out against bottled water use, global warming (“What Would Jesus Drive?” was the name of one campaign), and numerous other eco-issues.

All this could prove to be a headache for Monsanto — but they’re veterans of this kind of opposition. Beets account for half of the nation’s sugar supply, so they’re certainly prepared to make a positive case for using the modified seeds.

More than anything, the ICCR and other religious groups demonstrate just how all-inclusive the wellness movement has become. All sorts of people have found that health and the environment fit with their values. It’s just that some are more divinely inspired than others.

Last autumn, we had the chance to sit down with Meijer co-chairman Doug Meijer and president Mark Murray. At the time, the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based chain had just been given the SN Whole Health Enterprise Award for its leadership in bringing health and wellness to mainstream consumers.

One of the reasons Meijer got the award was its ability to broaden the concept of wellness beyond food and extend it into less-obvious departments. Since Meijer operates a supercenter format, there were plenty of surprises. Murray noted that even the chain’s garden center contributed to the customer’s wellness because it promotes activities that create peace of mind and a sense of well-being.

Meijer will take the idea one step further this spring, when it starts selling 1.3 million certified organic potted vegetable and herb plants in all of its nearly 200 stores. The plants come from a brand new, four-acre greenhouse built by Elzinga & Hoeksema Greenhouses, one the the region’s largest commercial greenhouse growers.

The facility, located in Kalamazoo, Mich., will open next week, and help Meijer add another dimension to its umbrella concept of wellness. Mark Elziinga (shown above in the greenhouse), notes the facility produces 1000 gallons a day of compost tea to feed the plants, and uses eco-friendly geothermal and solar power technology.

Study after study has been telling us that consumers want to get closer to the sources of their food. Researchers point to the popularity of farmer’s markets and community supported agriculture co-ops. Thanks to Meijer, they can add the backyard garden. And that’s about as close to your food as you can get.

According to a recent poll by the NPD Group, 79% of consumers believe the U.S. economy is in a recession or at least headed toward one. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said as much on Monday. Who can blame them? The price of gas increased almost a dollar per gallon from this time last year, and some economists believe that it could puncture the $4 mark by spring. Food, healthcare and energy costs have also shot up. And, oh yeah, the housing market is stagnant.

Restaurants are already feeling the heat. New numbers from research firm Technomic show companies’ overall growth dropped this past year, largely due to the “struggle against fuel prices, increasing cost of labor and commodities and menu price increases,” according to Technomic’s president, Ron Paul.

Normally, this could be considered good news for much of the supermarket industry, which traditionally becomes the go-to for consumers during a recession, capturing the dollars that are no longer being spent on restaurant food and other “luxuries.”

This time matters are a bit more complicated, however. For the past few years, organics and other categories associated with wellness have helped drive growth in the supermarket sector. These better-for-you products and services brought premium prices and better margins to the shelves. Now that the economy is turning sour, what will become of this scenario?

Simple logic dictates that sales of organic, all-natural and other premium-priced offerings will slow down. But consumers are fickle, and retailers might be surprised to see them striving to minimize medical problems by eating better and smarter.

One thing is for sure: The modern supermarket industry has been around for more than 60 years, and has taken plenty of rides on the economic roller coaster. Everyone should be healthy enough to survive this trip.

On the eve of the critical Democratic primaries in Ohio and Texas, we thought it might be time to start talking about the candidates and their (still evolving) positions on the environment and sustainability.

Nobody knows just how large the “green” voting bloc is, but with the candidates’ leads “shakier than cafeteria Jell-O” (one of the many food-related “Ratherisms” uttered during past election nights by network anchorman Dan Rather), there’s a general feeling that the environmentally sensitive voters are a group to be courted.

So, where does one research the greeness of the American electorate? Catalina Marketing, the targeted coupon company, went to that town square of consumption, the supermarket. First, the firm identified a green shopper as someone who made purchases from a list of products promoted as eco-friendly between April 2006 and April 2007. They used that information to answer the question: “Do green shoppers translate to green voters?”

The research did yield a few surprising results. For instance, the Democratic state of California — often seen as a healthy place to live — indexed at the average for the number of green shoppers. California’s neighbors, Oregon and Washington, both ranked well above the average.

Of the Republican states, Colorado and Alaska both ranked above average in their tendency to have green shoppers, with Alaska beating out even blue states Oregon and Washington. The top five green states most likely to have green shoppers in order are: Alaska (red), Washington (blue), Oregon (blue), Colorado (red) and Vermont (blue). The states least likely to have green shoppers, in order, are: Oklahoma (red), Alabama (red), Minnesota (blue), North Dakota (red) and Wisconsin (blue).

Catalina also crunched some numbers and found that green product sales have doubled since 2005, with an 82% increase in 2007 alone. Boy, would Hillary or Barack love to have that number posted on their returns.