As environmental leaders seek models for how to make change happen quickly and powerfully, they may want to look into their refrigerator. There is a powerful transformation happening in our agricultural system and it’s taking place without mandates, quotas or a large bureaucracy.
When my co-founder Barry and I launched Honest Tea out of my house in 1998, we knew our enterprise would have a broader mission than just selling tea, but we weren’t exactly sure what form that would take. I made up a symbol of a tree in a circle with the words “Plant a Tree” and stuck it on the back of the bottle. I remember Barry asking me, “What’s that supposed to mean?” I replied, “I’m not sure yet.” But I knew it would serve as a placeholder for our company’s commitment to being mindful of our environmental footprint and doing things differently.
The most meaningful environmental commitment we’ve made has been converting our entire product line to USDA Organic certification. Since 1999 when Honest Tea launched the world’s first organic bottled tea, to 2002 when we converted the entire product line to organic, the USDA seal has been an important way to differentiate our brand in the marketplace and a key driver of our sales growth. (We’ve averaged better than 60% growth since we started, reaching $13.5 million in annual sales in 2006.)
Now that mainstream retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target and Safeway are creating their own private label organic products, it is likely that within five years at least 10% of our nation’s food supply will be certified organic (Today at an estimated $20 billion the organic share of the food market is less than three percent.). As a result of this transition, the use of chemical pesticides, fertilizers and growth hormones will be reduced by millions of tons – benefiting our ecosystem and the people who produce our food, not to mention those who consume it.
In the case of organics, the market has been the most powerful driver of change. When we started Honest Tea in 1998, there were lots of different definitions of the term “organic”. Several dozen non-profits, for-profits and state agencies offered their own organic certification. As a result, the term was vague and had little meaning to consumers or retailers. The federal government played a critical role in clearly defining, identifying and enforcing the term “organic” with the federal “USDA Organic” seal, but then the best thing the government did was get out of the way and let the marketplace drive the change. Instead of creating mandates or a large federal bureaucracy, the USDA certifies an international network of independent self-sustaining certifiers, such as for-profit Quality Assurance International and non-profit Pennsylvania Certified Organic.
Numerous consumer surveys showed that ten years ago consumers were choosing organic because they wanted to help save the environment. Now the same surveys show that consumers are buying organic because they want to save themselves – they believe that the USDA Organic seal means the product is healthier.
There are some who will debate whether organics are indeed healthier, though it’s tough to make the case why our bodies would benefit from more synthetic chemicals and hormones. But from an environmental perspective, there’s no debate that the spread of organics is a positive step. Of course, we have to recognize the limitations – the boom in organics will erase the temporary advantage currently held by small organic farmers as more corporate farms get involved. And we still need to be aware of the “Food Miles” we consume – flying in organic asparagus from Argentina has a worse environmental impact than buying conventional produce from a local farmer. But there’s no debating that our ecosystems and agricultural workers are better off without exposure to synthetic pesticides, fertilizers and hormones. It may be as beneficial as planting trees…..

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Blog from Seth & Barry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.