If you prefer an organic toxic pesticide over a synthetic one, or prefer food created with older genetic modification rather than the modern kind, then you are willing to pay more for those values.
And it was only a matter of time before companies followed the money.
The Organic Trade Association, which represents Big Organic (and funds anti-science groups that try to bully scientists, like US Right To Know) is crowing that the food process of its donors is now up to 5 percent of the food market - obviously a gigantic amount of revenue, since no one can opt out of food - but now they are trying to juggle the carefully crafted perception that those tens of billions of dollars are being generated by wholesome small farmers who use no pesticides, and not farmers giving us 700 percent more salmonella than even a few years ago.
Whole Foods is a giant corporation, but the perception that they were the leader was manageable. The reality is that Kroger is. Yes, just a regular supermarket. The wealthy elites who embraced organic food early on will need to move onto another fad if they want to maintain that self-identification.
Big Organic is trying to maintain its elite Health Halo status while advocating that poor people should eat more of it - and that is not easy. Whole Foods is trying to move from wealthy liberal neighborhoods to more mainstream ones - using lower pricing.
So while Kroger adopted organic like Whole Foods, Whole Foods wants to become more like Kroger.
There is often a belief that by kooky anti-science activists that corporations are engaged in some vast conspiracy, but the actions of Kroger and Whole Foods show that they really have no clue what they are doing, they are all just chasing trends after the fact.
