An Urban's Rural View

If you can't lick them, buy them -- and build them up.

That's how giant food makers are responding to competitors specializing in "natural" and organic food. They're acquiring them. General Mills now owns Annie's; Campbell's Soup, Plum; Coca-Cola, Honest Tea; Kellogg, Kashi.

As the big food companies go natural and organic, the market evolves. The giants are introducing new products aimed at a wider audience. What was once a small, boutique business is becoming bigger and more segmented, with offerings for a variety of tastes.

For a glimpse of these changes, check out this intriguing Wall Street Journal story, "Does Organic Food Taste as Virtuous If It Goes Mass Market?" (http://tiny.cc/…). The story describes:

--Honest Tea learning, while a unit of Coke, that it can attract a broader clientele by adding sugar to its beverages, even as its sugar-free green tea continues to sell best at stores like Whole Foods;

--Plum, armed with Campbell's research on consumer tastes in soup, cutting up the kale and spinach finer to avoid scaring kids away;

--Kashi coming under social-media attack for using genetically engineered ingredients and promising, after losing $200 million in sales over five years, to get rid of them;

--Annie's discovering that it can't sell an organic frozen pizza for $9 but can sell frozen mini pizza bagels and poppers for $4 a box;

--A mother in Phoenix being taught by her three-year-old that "Just because it says organic doesn't mean it tastes good."

Amid all the changes, the article hints, some things never change. Taste and price will always rank high in what the public expects of food. And big business will always think big. When Honest Tea presented its growth plans to Coke last year, the response was: "Great. How do we double or triple this?"

As eternal as these verities may be, the broadening and segmenting of the market is the big news in the Journal article. It's certainly important news for the agriculture sector: When natural and organic food "goes mass market," farmers and other ag professionals must take heed.

Are we talking threats? Opportunities? Both, maybe. For many in agriculture, coping with the changes Big Food has wrought will be increasingly top of mind.

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

(CZ)