Look What "Big Food" is Doing to Stop Food Activists
General News 11/14/2015 at 14:55:23
Look What "Big Food" is Doing to Stop Food Activists
By Martha Rosenberg
Officially, Big Food is not worried about the small number of "fringe" food activists who object to cruel, unhealthful and environmentally destructive products. But unofficially, it is a different story. American Egg Board CEO Joanne Ivy stepped down in apparent disgrace last month when a 2013 email she wrote to a consultant saying the board was accepting "your offer to make that phone call to keep Just Mayo off Whole Foods shelves," was revealed. Just Mayo is an egg-free and vegan product from San Francisco start-up Hampton Creek. Whole Foods still sells it.
Why is Ivy's attempt to quash competition reason to step down? As a USDA commodity "checkoff" program, the egg board is a quasi-government agency not supposed to be playing dirty retail tricks.
US egg producers themselves have also been caught playing dirty tricks. To block growing public outrage over the profit-driven cruel practices of debeaking and forced molting of chickens, United Egg Producers (the trade group that represents 85 percent of US egg producers and 180 egg farms) rolled out an "Animal Care Certified" logo ten years ago to assure consumers that its members' eggs were produced humanely.
The problem was--it wasn't true. In 2005, the Better Business Bureau ruled that the label was misleading, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) demanded that the label read not "Care Certified" but "United Egg Producers Certified," clarifying that there was no third party certification involved. United Egg Producers was also fined $100,000 and made to sign an agreement with attorneys general in sixteen states to settle the false advertising claims.
More:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Look-What-Big-Food-is-Do-by-Martha-Rosenberg-Food_Food_Food-Contamination_Food-Industry-Organic-151114-584.html
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