Tectonic Shift Shakes Up Traditional Organic Produce Distribution

A handful of longtime specialty-organic produce distributors, dedicated to ethics beyond the “bottom line,” have made it possible for moderate-scale organic farmers to thrive. Now as the conventional world is staking larger claims to organic production, traditional organic distributors are losing market share to large-scale, price-driven newcomers. Co-ops and independent retailers – the backbone of our organic marketplace for over four decades – are losing sales to supermarket and big-box interlopers. As victims of our own success, must we now cede Certified Organic to Food Inc.? Or will our traditional grower-distributor-retailer community bind together to overcome this profound challenge to the core values of our good food movement?