Expanding Organics

Over Thanksgiving I had a couple of conversations about how Whole Foods has achieved such strides in the overall development of organic and local foods across the US. While environmentalists and business are typically portrayed as being fundamentally at odds with one another, the reality is usually more complicated. By working within the system, Whole Foods has managed to shift the focus of the entire industry: most supermarkets now have at least some token organic section. In the process, Whole Foods has helped to effectively raise awareness of important issues related to food and food production.

For example, I remember receiving many informative brochures years ago about the cruelty of veal production, usually accompanied by graphic photographs. While effective at turning my stomach and making me swear off veal for a while, I’d classify such approaches as falling into that traditional environmental stance: veal is bad and it should be self-evident that it’s bad. Such an approach isn’t terribly effective in the long term, however.

Contrast that approach to labeling meat at the supermarket as hormone free. It’s a no-brainer: of course I want the hormone free meat. I might have no idea what hormones they’re talking about, or even what hormones are, but hormone-free meat sounds better than that meat over there which one can only assume is crawling with hormones.

So what brought on this post? I ran across a service in Los Angeles and Washington called Organic to Go which delivers organic food to your door, much like other grocery delivery services. I find it interesting that they achieve differentiation by actively promoting their organic, ethical, seasonal products. I’d be curious to see how they’d stack up against the likes of Fresh Direct…