Organic Cheating

That organic label on your favorite frozen pizza? It might not mean what you think.

Here's the deal. Under USDA regulations, a product has to contain 95 to 100 percent organic ingredients to be represented as organic on the front of the package. Think of it like a college degree: you can't put 'PhD' on your resume if you only finished 70 percent of the coursework.

But according to OrganicEye, two big brands have found a workaround. Amy's Kitchen and Clif Bars are partnering with a certifier called QAI, Quality Assurance International, and placing 'certified organic' logos on products that can contain up to 30 percent non-organic ingredients. So you're scanning the package, you see a 'certified organic' badge, and you assume the whole product qualifies. But it doesn't.

According to OrganicEye, only 32 percent of Amy's product line and just 22 percent of Clif Bar's products actually qualify as certified organic. That means the vast majority of what these brands sell doesn't meet the USDA standard for organic, even though the branding creates that impression.

And remember, Clif Bar isn't some scrappy startup. It's owned by Mondelēz International, a $26-billion-plus corporation that also makes Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and Ritz Crackers. OrganicEye also points out that Mondelēz traces its corporate lineage back to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Philip Morris. This isn't a small health food company owned by a guy named Clif. It's industrial-scale big food at its finest.

It gets more tangled. According to OrganicEye, a Clif Bar employee named Tom Chapman chaired the USDA National Organic Standards Board and helped rewrite its procedures in ways that reduced the board's influence over organic policy. He then went on to become co-CEO of the Organic Trade Association, the industry's own lobby group. That's like a player becoming the referee and then becoming the league commissioner.

OrganicEye has filed formal legal complaints against both companies. But regardless of where that goes, the takeaway for you is this: don't let a logo do your thinking. If you don’t see the official USDA Organic Seal, you better flip the package over, read the actual ingredient list, and look at the percentage of organic content. Your money should support brands that are truly committed to organic standards, not ones using clever badge placement to create an illusion. See a link in my bio to send a message to the CEOs of these companies if you don’t appreciate the misrepresentation.

Link for to Contact CEOs:  Send a message to CEOs to stop misclassifying products as ORGANIC