Big Food Tainting Its Organic Subsidiaries With Trust Problems

Massive conglomerates selling food, known as “Big Food” in the trade, have a problem. The constant drumbeats in social media against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), factory farms, chemical fertilizer and pesticides have had a real impact on sales and (perhaps more importantly) their long-term addressable markets. Millennials just aren’t interested in eating that stuff.

What’s worse, as the general public becomes aware that once “trusted brands” are now owned by those conglomerates, trust in them erodes too. In 2012 California’s Proposition 37, which would have required labeling of genetically modified food failed, but websites like Inspiration Green revealed just how many of those brands had been bought up. It’s a mind-boggling list. Ben & Jerry’s? Owned by Unilever . Kashi? Owned by Kellogg , with a blanket statement on the site that Kashi cereals contain GMOs. There are many, many more.

When Annie’s Homegrown, a popular maker of natural and organic foods, was bought out by General Mills in September, the web went into an uproar…or as the Genetic Literacy Project put it “GMO Opponents Go Berserk.”

It’s easy to write off these statements as coming from a fringe part of society, but it is clear Big Food is taking it very seriously. In an Ad Age article published today, the magazine revealed Kellogg has put out a request for proposal (RFP) seeking ideas to “re-establish our identity in the natural foods movement.”

As Ad Age points out, big brands have very little trust with consumers. Ad Age believes they are “losing” that trust due to media attention. Others believe that the bigger they get, the less they are trusted. Conglomerates are not considered caring, feeling groups. Put a once-iconic organic brand into the mix and it becomes just that…part of the mix.

Ironically, those same organic brands should, theoretically, have the opportunity to increase their reach when they’re bought by bigger companies. Economies of scale, world-wide supply chains, on paper it all sounds really good. But it just isn’t working.

Trust is a complicated emotion. Walmart has presumed for several years that selling organic products for a slightly lower price would drive defections from companies like Whole Foods Market , or even Costco. There’s one problem however. The Whole Foods and Costco customer trusts Walmart even less than she trusts Big Food. By now, most people know that those price reductions come at a cost, and there’s a real concern that in this case, the cost will be food quality.

Of course, Walmart is not standing pat on the trust issue. Today, fellow contributor Walter Loeb reported on five freedoms for animals developed by the company. Those freedoms are meant to create shopper trust – trust that the animals they are eating – and bought from Walmart have been treated humanely.

In this one area Walmart has it right. Trust is not something that can be achieved through the perfect marketing campaign. For better or worse, we live in an age of transparency. Very few “big lies” go unchallenged. In fact, very few small lies go unchallenged as well. Trust must be earned.

Dan Atchison-Nevel, head of NSEV Healing in Miami, pointed out that actually solving the trust problem would be simple for Big Food. In his words, “All they’d have to do is sell the same food in the U.S. that they sell in many European countries. Those countries don’t allow GMO food, and they require clear labeling of what’s in every product.” That's the simplest, although not least expensive approach.

It’s clear that Big Food is going to have to do something. A branding exercise probably shouldn’t be its first choice.

[Correction: General Mills was misidentified in an earlier copy of this piece as the author of the RFP described in Ad Age. The company is now stated correctly as Kellogg.]