Morningstar Farms: Mega-Corporate Food
December 18th, 2007 at 10:00 pm (Vegetarian Lifestyle)
Let’s get this straight right off – I love Morningstar Farms‘ food products. In fact, the accessibility and attractiveness of their products are one of the enablers of mainstream vegetarian (and vegan) living!
But there is one thing about Morningstar that many people don’t know: They’re actually just another brand owned by the Kellogg Company. Despite the lack of any mention on the “About Us” page at the Worthington (owner of the Morningstar Farms trademark) web site, Kellogg purchased Morningstar in 1999. Of course, since the Worthington and Morningstar pages are hosted at Kellogg.com, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out.
Why mention this? So many vegetarians and vegans don’t realize just how corporate-ized the alternative foods industry has become. Pick just about any alternative foods company, and you’ll find that a corporate giant owns it:
- Boca, Back to Nature, and Balance are owned by Kraft, which is part of Philip Morris (nee Altria)
- Annie’s and Gardenburger are owned by (separate) private capital companies
- Cascadian Farm is owned by General Mills
- Fakin’ Bacon, Foney Baloney, Gimme Lean, Smart Dogs, Tofu Pups, etc (Light Life) are ConAgra since 2000
- Kashi joins Morningstar Farms at Kellogg
- Nantucket All Serve is now served by Cadbury Schweppes
- Nature’s Farm Organic is chicken-monster Tyson
- Odwalla is Coca Cola
- Stoneyfield Farms is a label of Groupe Danone (Dannon)
- Ben and Jerry’s is now part of Unilever
Ask yourself: Are the healthy alternative foods you enjoy really what you think they are? Is there that much difference in eating Stoneyfield Farms or Dannon yogurt? How environmentally friendly are ConAgra’s Tofu Pups, really? And does it bother you that the same company makes Chef Boyardee and Slim Jim?
I’m not sure what the answer is. But I have questions…
More information is available at endgame.
Overheard:Annie's, Ben and Jerry's, Boca, Cascadian Farm, ConAgra, General Mills, Kashi, Kellogg, Kraft, Light Life, Morningstar Farms, Nantucket All Serve, Odwalla
bekabug said,
January 6, 2008 at 1:38 pm
The reality is most people either lack the confidence, the means, or time to properly feed themselves and these food suppliers know it. So they make cheap food full of crap and preservatives so it can sit on a shelf or in a freezer for the rest of eternity.
At the same time ethical suppliers who do not do evil things like pump your food full of sodium nitrate and other nasties have a hard time competing cost-wise and usually end up selling their brand to a large corporation instead of going bankrupt.
Sometimes it is ok because the corpo that takes over promises to stay committed to the same level of integrity and quality as the original company (think Tom’s of Maine and Colgate).
Happily it has been shown that we can fight back by voting with our dollars and supporting campaigns that are lobbying to create change. The most recent, and probably largest victory, has been COK’s Morningstar Farm egg campaign.