Business Week magazine recently wrote about the increasing demand for organic food in the United States. The magazine chose to tell this interesting and complicated story using Stonyfield Farm as a case study of a company trying to feed a growing organic market with a limited supply of domestic organic ingredients.
The story generated a surprising amount of internet activity which included some gross misconceptions and falsehoods about our company and our practices.
So I'd like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
We maintain our longstanding and deep commitment to family farmers.
Stonyfield Farm has been one of our nation's leading advocates of family farms for over two decades. We've worked to support the development of new organic farms and every year for 12 years increased our purchase of organic milk from family farms in the United States. We spend millions of dollars each year assisting farmers transitioning to organic, sponsoring training workshops and other programs, and paying premiums to farmers to produce organic milk and other ingredients.
We have always advocated on behalf of family farms, including investing enormous efforts in testifying and lobbying against the introduction of the synthetic hormone, rBST. We were the first dairy processor in America to pay farmers not to use this drug. We even sued the State of Illinois for preventing us from labeling our products rBST-free.
100% of our milk comes from family farms in the USA
We make all of our dairy products from milk from US family farms.
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Our organic milk is supplied through our partnership with Organic Valley1, a Wisconsin based dairy cooperative of over 600 dairy farmers with pools of organic milk producers throughout the US -- including in neighboring Vermont and Maine. These are NOT factory farms.
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Our non-organic milk (also from cows not treated with rBST) is from St. Albans Cooperative Creamery in Vermont, a cooperative of 516 member farms.
We do not make our yogurt from powdered milk.
In fact, we use millions of pounds of fluid milk annually in our products, 100% of which is from family farmers in the United States.
Incoming milk and its components such as fat, protein, milk sugars and milk minerals constantly vary, based on geography, seasonality, age and breed of the cow. Due to these inherent variations, we adjust our recipes and add minute amounts (less than 5%) of organic nonfat dry milk powder2 based on the analysis of our incoming ingredients.
This delivers a consistent high quality product that our consumers have come to expect and is standard practice in natural yogurt production around the world. (Please note: this is instead of using gelatin or modified food starch, which is used by companies not committed as we are to natural foods.)
We buy 100% of our nonfat dry milk from the US and 0% from New Zealand or outside the US.
As our loyal customers know, due to the enormous demand for organic dairy products, over the past two years, we could not source enough organic milk to make our products. In fact, we had to convert two of our product lines to non-organic as a result.
We have been working closely with Organic Valley to dramatically increase the organic milk supply in the US. In 2007, we will purchase 50% more US family farmer organic milk than we did in 2006. And we are very proud of this! This is due to a huge investment on the part of Stonyfield Farm and Organic Valley in farmer education, recruitment and outreach and means the addition of hundreds of new organic dairy farmers in the US.
However, because of the severe shortage of organic milk in the US, we have engaged in conversations with a New Zealand dairy cooperative about the possibility of importing organic milk powder. We have not purchased any organic milk powder from New Zealand -- or anywhere outside the US -- and it could be we never will. But in light of the severe milk shortages over the past two years, it is our responsibility to our consumers, customers and employees to examine all options that allow us to keep making yogurt.
It is worth noting that should this ever come to pass, 100% of the organic milk powder would come from family farms in New Zealand with grass fed cows on pasture. If such a move occurs, we believe that taking toxins out of the environment by supporting organic farmland should be important to all of us, regardless of where that farmland is located.
Finding organic ingredients close to home
The reality is the vast majority of the organic ingredients that Stonyfield Farm purchases are grown right here in the US
We source over 160 million lbs of organic ingredients annually -- fruit, sweeteners, milk, grains, spices, etc. Those ingredients annually support over 40,000 acres of organic production. We always source locally in the US first. Some ingredients like organic cocoa, banana, and vanilla do not grow in the US so we import them. Only a small amount of organic sugar is grown in the US3, so virtually all organic food companies import organic sugar.
Our imports of organic ingredients that could otherwise be grown in the US make up less than 2% of our organic ingredient purchases. Why do we sometimes look elsewhere when items can be grown in the US?
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They are not available.
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They may in fact be geographically closer to us than most US suppliers. An example is Quebec-grown organic blueberries, which account for one-third of our imported ingredients.
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We cannot be dependent on one geographic area for all of our fruit needs. If there were a freeze in California where we buy organic strawberries, and that was our single source, we would not be able to make strawberry yogurt for a year. We intentionally work with growers in multiple geographic areas to reduce our risk.
We encourage you to visit our website and contact us to share what's on your mind. And know we remain committed to the founding ideals of our company and organics. We thank you for taking the time to learn more about Stonyfield Farm and our products.
Sincerely,
Gary Hirshberg
CE-Yo
