Jon Rappoport
From a February 13 article, “Who owns organics now?”, at the Cornucopia Institute:
“In 1995 there were 81 independent organic processing companies in the United States. A decade later, Big Food had gobbled up all but 15 of them.”
At Cornucopia, you can view Philip H Howard’s monster chart (updated) depicting the Big Food owners and the companies they’ve bought.
http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/
Some of those Big Boy Buyers? Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsi, M&M Mars, Campbell Soup, ConAgra. These are also companies who put up money to defeat GMO-labeling ballot measures in California and Washington state.
Consider another big buyer. Hain Celestial. Starting in the mid-1990s, they’ve purchased:
Ella’s Kitchen; Earth’s Best, Walnut Acres; ShariAnn’s; Mountain Sun; Millina’s Finest; Frutti di Bosco; Sunspire; MaraNantha; Westbrae; Westsoy; Little Bear; Bearitos; TofuTown; Nile Spice; Blue Print; DeBole’s; Garden of Eatin’; Arrowhead Mills; Breadshop; Health Valley; Casbah; Imagine/Rice; Dream/Soy; Dream; Celestial Seasoning.
This buying spree was aided by investments from HL Heinz and George Soros.
Currently among the top shareholders of Hain Celestial: Goldman Sachs and Blackrock.
Blackrock is the world’s biggest asset manager. In 2009, the US Federal Reserve and the US Treasury Department contracted Blackrock to evaluate “distressed federal assets” worth $130 billion.
From 2010-2013, notorious corporate raider, Carl Icahn, owned 12% of Hain Celestial.
-Nothing personal, it’s just business. We just add companies to our portfolio. We consolidate our position in the industry.-
People used to think the natural-food world was a dedicated mom-and-pop operation. Not anymore.
It’s big fish eating little fish.
And what happens to the food itself, when companies buying other companies becomes the real game in town?