Mackey-Pollan Smackdown Turns Love Fest

By Carmel Wroth

AMUSE-BOUCHE: Local, of course

The pre-event reception to the Michael Pollan-John Mackey discussion drew quite a crowd.

Hungry (and penniless) graduate students rubbed shoulders with well-heeled foodies, including superstar chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, nutritionist and best-selling author Marion Nestle, and Bill Niman, co-founder of Niman Ranch meats.

Of course you’re wondering what there was to eat.

Guests munched on goat cheese fritata, artisanal salami, and crostini, decked with green olive tapenade, warm hedgehog mushroom spread with fresh grated romano, and duck liver pate.

All locally sourced, naturally!

Conversation buzzed—everyone was excited to see the two food luminaries talk. Or maybe they were just pleased they had scored tickets (people were soliciting them on Craig’s List before the event.)

Whole Foods employees had come from far and wide to see their boss.

“John Mackey is cool,” said Elizabeth Wade, a team leader at the Petaluma, California, store.

David Evans, Marin Sun Farms’ owner, who sells his grass-fed meat locally (and not in Whole Foods), said he hoped the Pollan-Mackey conversation would shed light on how “small farms can access a bigger market without sacrificing integrity.”

Yes, indeed, the question of the night.

FIRST COURSE: History Lesson

To start things off, John Mackey - co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods - gave the crowd of nearly 2000 people a 45-minute food history lesson, complete with colorful Powerpoint slides.

He walked us through the entire history of food procurement and production. Six discreet stages of food history from hunting and gathering to Whole Foods Market!

Okay, that’s not entirely fair. Mackey believes that a new era of food is emerging to replace industrial agriculture--what he calls ecological agriculture--and naturally it’s bigger than Whole Foods.

He seems to think his company is the heart of the movement (it may well be), and he clearly articulated a vision for a sustainable alternative to industrial food.

He also broke some news (as he seems to do every time he appears with Pollan). Whole Foods has established a $30 million venture capital fund to make equity investments in artisanal food companies. This presumably comes on top of a $10 million fund set up for farmers last year.

Secondly, the company is launching a “Whole Trade Guarantee” fo the company’s commitment to source certified ethically traded products.

How can you be cynical about this man?

SECOND COURSE: Smack-down Letdown

As the dialogue got under way, there was a rustling of expectation in the audience. The provocative debate was about to begin, right?

After all, these were the two men who disagreed so strongly about whether the organic food business was lapsing into industrialism that they conducted a heated, months-long online argument. (See our previous post for links on the debate)

In person, though, they were almost painfully gentle with one another. They sparred, a little, I guess, but it was more like couple's counseling than a duel.

For starters, there were admissions of mutual gratitude and admiration. Mackey had learned from Pollan. Pollan appreciated Mackey.

The denouement came when Pollan asked Mackey if he blamed the company’s recent stock devaluation on his less than flattering chapter on the Whole Foods. It went like this:

“Well you probably cost us about $2 billion,” said the natural foods tycoon. “Easy come, easy go.”

(Audience laughs)

“Seriously???” (Culinary poet laureate grimaces painfully).

Mackey described how a flurry of unflattering press followed the book, including frequent comparisons to Wal-Mart.

Pollan looked contrite.

Mackey melted: “Aw, I’m just pulling your chain a little bit, Michael!”

What are righteous eco-consumers to make of this not-so-spirited interchange? If you want to see a debate, as one audience member suggested, invite people who are really on opposing sides of an issue.

Pollan and Mackey originally did have their differences, but when Pollan came up with his eloquent critique, Mackey moved rapidly to turn Whole Foods' sustainable battleship in line with Pollan’s vision—or to emphasize the ways it already was already doing so (sourcing more local foods in stores and moving forward with supporting domestic grass-fed meat, for example).

Pollan, for his part, politely closed ranks with perhaps the most influential man in organic and natural food circles, which is, you'll recall, the alternative to 98 percent of the food supply.

Mackey had his own criticism of Pollan, saying “big organic” is not as big and bad as the author claimed.

“You exaggerated the extent of industrialization of organic,” he said, even adding his most contentious comment, “you’ve done some damage!”

Pollan said he “didn’t intend to demonize” big organic. Organic Coca-Cola would be fine by him. (Say what?)

Which leads us back to a fundamental question raised by the evening's discussion, can organic scale up without selling out? Is there a way to produce and distribute enough organic food to reach the vast majority of the population, or will organic food remain in its gilded 2 percent niche?

DESSERT: A challenge

With all these weighty issues on our minds, Mackey asked one last question.

“What is your contribution going to be? What are you going to do to support ecological agriculture?”

Other than shopping at Whole Foods and the farmers' market? We're still pondering that one.

(The Webcast of the event is archived here)

Tailgate Party: Mackey Comments Pre-Debate

John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, made a guest appearance in Michael Pollan’s graduate level journalism class on food issues, hours before their much-anticipated discussion.

We got an inside-the-classroom look at Mackey from a new contributor, Carmel Wroth.

Pollan had cautioned the class against being too aggressive, but maybe it wasn't needed.

There was something about Mackey that makes you want to be on his side. He's so optimistic you get swept up in his good vibes and forward-looking energy. He even challenged the students to take on the mission of expanding the organic food movement beyond the 2 percent of food sales that his generation has managed to carve out.

Through a winding conversation, Mackey never let go of his theme: that natural and organic foods are in the early stages of evolution, but with imagination, faith and the entrepreneurial spirit, it can and will grow.

The subtext wasn’t hard to discern either—Whole Foods is the leader of that evolution, and deserves admiration, not criticism.

Mackey described his company’s plans to keep pushing natural foods forward, including their embrace the “Fair Trade” and “Rainforest Alliance” labels (both focusing on sustainability in the Third World) and their new “Animal Compassion Standards” which he hopes will eventually be adopted industry-wide.

In his all-embracing stance, he was quick to try to find common ground with local food supporters, like Pollan. He called it a “waste of time to have these arguments between local and organic” when both are such small niches.

He predicted a future when local agriculture would be in such a resurgence that there would be no need to fly in fresh produce from international markets (such as the much-maligned mushy asparagus Pollan described in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma). The only globally sourced goods would be things that can’t be grown locally like coffee and bananas.

Yet, somehow all the think-positive talk seemed to be blowing smoke over the very real challenges of scaling up the organic movement without betraying its ideals, or the small farmers once at its heart. Mackey simply brushed aside concerns that scaled-up large, organic farms are likely to be less in line with organic and ecological principles.

Humm ... We'll see how Mackey's positive mojo plays with the Berkeley crowd later this evening.

- Carmel Wroth

The Whole Dilemma: John Mackey Debates Michael Pollan

Last year, Michael Pollan published a bold critique of Whole Foods in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, taking the natural foods giant to task for selling what he dubbed industrial organic food.

Exhibit A: a limp bunch of organic asparagus flown in from South America rather than the local foods burgeoning at places like farmers' markets.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey responded, thoroughly engaging his critic in a spirited debate. (Somewhere in there Mackey also handed Pollan a $25 gift certificate for the asparagus &#8212 not sure if Pollan spent it, but we'll check it out).

This was all followed closely in foodie circles, with the back-and-forth discussion at both Pollan's and Mackey's web sites.

Now, the two are back, meeting Tuesday evening at the University of California Berkeley, where Pollan teaches in the journalism program, for a "discussion" about the past, present and future of food. The event proved so popular it had to be moved to a larger hall to accommodate the audience. Now it's sold out.

It should be entertaining. The inside word is that Mackey will be provocative - but it's unlear what that means.

U.C. Berkeley will be running a live Webcast of the event here.

A new contributor to Chews Wise will also be blogging from Berkeley so stay tuned for our take on it.
- Samuel Fromartz

How to Grow Heirloom Tomatoes

What's the fastest way to get heirloom tomatoes growing? For all of you thinking about compost, seaweed nutrients and other farming esoterica, add this to your list: credit cards.

This last tip comes from my friend Jim, who has an organic farm in Pennsylvania.

At the farmers' market in D.C. this weekend, I was chatting with Jim about, you know, farmer things &#8212 the weather, when to put my onions in the ground, the chefs in town, finances.

Actually, this last topic came up because I told him another farmer I know on the West Coast &#8212 who is also named Jim &#8212 had tapped $240,000 from a $250,000 credit line. It was only late February, two weeks before his early season strawberry sales started kicking in.

So, Jim tells me, he solves that problem with credit cards.

Each year he carefully accepts those offers that fly into his mailbox for zero percentage balance transfers and bonus points and cash back on purchases.

He took on $40,000 in credit card debt this way last year, transferring balances from his working capital credit line that charges more than 9 percent interest. He even tapped out one card and stuck the money into a CD and made several hundred dollars.

In the fall, he's usually cash rich, so pays down the credit cards and then cancels them. But like new seed packets, the credit card offers roll in through the winter in time for his spring spending.

Credit cards are a common way of financing start-ups; entrepreneurs use them all the time. They key is to pay all minimum balances due on time. So you need to stay on top of your credit card statements if you're going to play this game.

I think I'll pass this tip on to Jim on the West Coast, but I'm not sure what it will do to his $240,000 debt. Maybe allow him to take on $40,000 more.
- Samuel Fromartz

How to Sell a Carrot

Chefs and farmers wax poetic about their food, farms, and dishes, but let's face it: what sometimes works best is a little marketing magic. Customers want it. They consume it. And images can be as easily manufactured in the kitchen as in Tinseltown.

Dan Barber, chef and owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, comes clean about how this works in an interesting New York Times piece about carrots - specifically, carrots that he attempted to infuse with the scent of almonds by sprinkling some of their nutty dust in his greenhouse garden.

He then marketed prodigiously, spreading the word that his almond carrots would be harvested and served at dinner one evening in a salad. What happened next is pretty hilarious, but it just goes to show you, as any Madison Avenue guru would tell you, it's the sizzle that sells.

Perhaps coincidentally, the title of this essay, "The Great Carrot Caper," was the name given to another incident in 1988 - when workers in California were photographed putting conventional carrots into bags marked organic. This was outright fraud.

Barber's antics are more innocent, but still a disguise, and one that customers end up rating with four stars.

I'd give Barber four stars too, having eaten at his restaurants, but - full disclosure - he also blurbed my book.

- Samuel Fromartz

Milking Time

As expected, the exclusive we broke Thursday on Dean Foods got a bit of attention, raising questions about where cloning is headed.

Tom Philpot over at Grist opined that Dean's decision showed the power of consumer choice: "If Dean holds to its promise, the whole cloned-cow thing could die an ignominious death, rejected by increasingly aware consumers. Similar consumer outrage is also convincing big dairy users to stop buying milk from cows treated with Monsanto's odious bovine growth hormones."

Karen Robinson-Jacobs, giving Chews Wise credit for breaking the story at The Dallas Morning News, also raised the question of what this means for cloning. She called it "a decision from the nation's largest dairy producer that could put a damper on the commercial viability of such products in the United States."

Meanwhile, The Ethicurean noted that "the parts of Dean Foods’ official statement that Fromartz quotes do not mention whether the company will take a position on dairy products from the progeny of cloned cows." This is a very important point, but also a complicated one that I will take up in a later post. It's especially muddy when it comes to organic milk, because of other loopholes in the regulations regarding the source of organic livestock. But it's complicated so needs a story on its own.

As for the AP, Libby Quaid blasted the news through the nation, but failed to give credit to the news source that broke it (as is customary in the news biz). We wonder if the AP would have done the same had the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or Washington Post broke the story. We broke it. Quaid confirmed it and should have noted where it originated.

Addendum: AP apologies in this email from Quaid

Congrats on your Dean Foods scoop. We've updated the latest version of our Dean Foods story to include that your blog was first to report the company's policy. My apologies ... Was rushed trying to match your story late yesterday.

EXCLUSIVE - Dean Foods Cloning Document

At the request of readers, here is a copy of the document we obtained.

EXCLUSIVE - Top U.S. Dairy Bans Milk From Clones

The top U.S. dairy company, Dean Foods, has adopted a policy statment banning milk from cloned cows, a copy obtained by Chews Wise shows.

This is a potentially significant step, since the Food and Drug Administration in December released its recommendation to allow food from cloned animals. The FDA has an open comment period on this issue that runs through April 2.

Dean Foods, with more than $10 billion in sales, is by far the largest dairy company in the nation. So even if the FDA allows cloning to go ahead, this policy may put the brakes on the development of clones, at least in the dairy industry.

The company also owns Horizon Organic, the top organic milk company. Other organic milk companies, such as Stonyfield Farms, Organic Valley, and Straus Family Creamery, have pledged not to take milk from any cloned cows. Non-profit organizations, such as the Center for Food Safety, have also been waging a campaign against cloning.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the Maryland Democrat, has introduced legislation to require labeling on packages of cloned foods: "This product is from a cloned animal or its progeny.''

Dean Foods "Position Statement: Milk From Cloned Cows" reads:

Based on the desire of our customers and consumers, Dean Foods will not accept milk from cows that have been cloned. If the FDA does approve the sale of milk from cloned cows, we will work with our dairy farmers to implement protocols to ensure that the milk they supply to Dean Foods does not come from cloned cows.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to conclude that milk from cloned cows is safe. Our decision not to accept this milk is based on meeting our consumers’ expectations. We see no consumer benefit from this technology.

Numerous surveys have shown that Americans are not interested in buying dairy products that contain milk from cloned cows and Dean Foods is responding to the needs of our consumers.

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Whole Foods Eats Oats

Whole Foods decided to have Wild Oats for its latest meal, gobbling up its distant rival in a bid to stave off competition from the Safeways, Giants and Wal-Marts of the world.

Short story: Organics and natural foods are hot, Wild Oats has been adrfit, and another player could have swallowed it up and created more formidible competition for Whole Foods.

What none of the news stories note, however, is that there was a traditional antipathy between these two companies, more than a competitive rivalry and something closer to extreme distaste. One could imagine that this very smart merger could have happened years earlier, without it.

The October 2006 exit of former Wild Oats CEO Perry Odak (who came from Ben & Jerry's in 2001) cleared the way for Whole Foods to make a merger overture - something that was aided by Wild Oats continued inability to gain significant traction.

Although Wild Oats had remodled stores and opened new ones - including, finally, a large store to compete with Whole Foods in its home turf of Boulder, Colorado - growth never really kicked the way it had at Whole Foods. It was always a distant second.

Wild Oats's sales per square foot - a typical industry measurement - are only 49 percent of Whole Food's. That means the typical customers visiting Whole Foods are buying twice as much stuff.

Downsides? Merging the culture of two companies who have a history of bad blood. But then again, "it's just bizness" and I imagine the Oaties will get along fine in Whole Foods.

Who Sucks Energy: Conventional or Organic Farming?

The London Telegraph dutifully reported the results of a study by the Manchester Business School, comparing energy use in organic and conventional farming systems. In a life cycle assessment - farm to fork - it found that many organic crops use more energy.

The energy needed to grow organic tomatoes is 1.9 times that of conventional methods, the study found. Organic milk requires 80 per cent more land to produce than conventional milk and creates 20 per cent more carbon dioxide, it says.

One note of caution: this was a government commissioned study, not one published in a peer reviewed journal. One of the longest-running studies comparing conventional and organic ag methods was published in Science in 2002. This Swiss study compared organic and conventional farming systems over 22 years and it found that organic farming used dramatically less energy. Why? Because one-third of the energy in agriculture goes into the production of pesticides and fertilzers.

The Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL) found that while organic systems tend to use slightly more energy in tractors and fuel, they use dramatically less energy overall.

Since crop yields were considerably higher in the conventional systems, the difference in energy needed to produce a crop unit was only 19 percent lower in the organic systems. Per area unit this difference accounted for 30–50 percent. Most of the difference was due to external production factors.

Organic farming needs only slightly more energy for infrastructure and machinery as well as for fuel, whilst markedly lower energy input for the production of fertilizers and pesticides.

Here's a graph of energy use, with K2 referring to conventional systems and O2 to organic.

<img src="http://www.fibl.org/english/research/soil-sciences/dok/img/direct-indirect_energy.jpg" width="315" height="287"

That said, once shipping and distance is taken into account, the picture gets muddy quickly. Do heated hothouses and local transport use more energy than unheated greenhouses in the south where the food is shipped longer distances? There's no easy answer to these questions.

What the Manchester study appears to do is to look at the entire lifecyle, but even the executive summary is filled with qualifiers about the actual lack of studies on life cycle assessment. Secondly, it admits that the analysis does not take into account benefits of organic farming such as biodiversity.

The full study is here:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/science/project_data/DocumentLibrary/EV02007/EV02007_4601_FRP.pdf

Organics up 9000 percent in Africa

Here's an argument local-food activists might consider: that demand for organic food in the developed world is aiding farmers in Africa. According to this Reuters article, African farmers are growing organic food for export.

"In Europe farms which have used chemicals on their land have to wait for three years while their land is cleansed before they get organic certification," said Amarjit Sahota of consultants Organic Monitor.

"As Third World farmers do not use agricultural chemicals they can get certification almost immediately."

African farmers were gaining from the trend.

"We are seeing the switch across the board with a range of crops in countries like Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Egypt," he said. "This is almost entirely being produced for export."

"I estimate there has been a 9,000 percent increase in organic farming in Africa in the last four years and a 1,000 percent increase in Latin America."

What the article doesn't explain, and which needs further investigation, is whether the farmers are actually benefiting from this trade in premium agricultural goods.

But this raises questions: Does an emphasis on buying local, to reduce food miles, stamp out just the sort of trade the developing world is seeking? Should it? Can a desire to support local farmers be balanced with trade that helps those in the Third World? And if so, How?

The Transparent Banana?

Dole revealed a shape of things to come in the food market - Transparency! - by allowing customers to see where their bananas come from.

Visit its Dole Organic web site and punch in the number on your banana SKU sticker. (Not the SKU code, which is 94011 for organic bananas but a three-number code that identifies the farm.) The web site shows you where this code is located.

I ran to my bananas downstairs and found the code and punched it into the web site.

Here's what I found.

DOLE PRODUCER CODE: 759 Farm Name: MarPlantis, S.A.

MarPlantis is formed by three farms, Colon, San Vicente and Matanegro. The three farms are located in Balao, El Oro, 3 hours away from Guayaquil. MarPlantis is the newest organic banana supplier for Dole Ecuador. It was first certified in 2005.
The Molina family is the owner of MarPlantis They are organic certified under EU and USDA NOP Rules.

While it showed pictures of the family - I presume they were the family - it didn't tell me much about them. Obviously that's the next step.

This reflects the entire direction the food system is moving in, toward more transparency. It's a good first step, as far as organic certifications go, but I'd like to see more, say, about worker conditions.