Organic Advocates Take On Sara Lee Over "Eco-Grain" Claims

Mainstream food brands must be careful when taking their products into the natural foods category – a space occupied by foodies, environmentalists, and brands that live by and defend stringent eco-conscious standards, particularly when it comes to the term “organic.”

Sara Lee is learning that lesson the hard way. The brand recently introduced its new line of bread, EarthGrains, which Sara Lee claims uses flour from wheat that is cultivated using ecologically advantageous means. And this drew the attention of the natural foods watchdogs.

A group called the Cornucopia Institute alleges that Sara Lee is misleading consumers into believing that its EarthGrains Eco-Grain products include flour from organically grown grain – and that, in doing so, Sara Lee is undermining the “organic” categorization that is crucial to the success of truly organic products and organic farmers. It’s an important distinction on many levels, including that the term is a crucial branding asset in that “organic” brands charge higher prices.

And while it’s true that the federal government a few years ago came up with a legal definition that products must meet in order to wear a USDA-approved “organic” label, it’s also true that Sara Lee isn’t calling Eco-Grain “organic.” In fact, the company has gone out of its way to point out that Eco-Grain isn’t organically grown and that Sara Lee isn’t making organic claims for it.

However, the method used by the Sara Lee farmers to cultivate Eco-Grain utilizes “precision agriculture” techniques that mainly save fuel and fertilizer by using tools such as satellite imagery. So while Sara Lee is making a “green” pitch with Eco-Grain, it’s hardly being positioned as organic. For industry watchdogs such as the Cornucopia Institute, the distinction isn’t clear enough.

As a branding move, Eco-Grain is a smart one for Sara Lee. It can acquire a bit of a deserved green halo for making a sincere and significant move in the direction of cutting resource use while not having to handcuff itself – or its end customers – with the higher prices that organic farming methods necessarily entail.

The folks at the Cornucopia Institute won’t like it, but consumers will.