Organics Online: Turning Problems into Selling Points

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONWhen I tell people about the consolidation of the organic food industry into big food, they often seem surprised. I suspect their surprise is, in part, because this information is not particularly widely known (despite being a matter of public record, acquisitions are rarely publicized in company narratives or branding). More importantly, however, I believe it is also because organic food is often seen as ideologically antithetical to the aims of the food industry. In this article, I argue that this seemingly oppositional relationship is no accident. I use rhetorical theory and a visual analysis of food companies' websites to argue that organic products are presented as solutions, alternatives, or responses to problems raised by the food industry writ large. I also draw on rhetorical theory to argue that when brands present particular products as a means for consumers to express dissatisfaction with the existing status quo, this is a major step towards redefining consumer activism in industry-friendly terms.Common critiques of the food industry focus on its detrimental effects on the environment, consumer health, and traditional food culture to argue that we need to change the way we produce our food. I argue that the brand identity created for the organic food products manufactured by subsidiaries/allies of major food manufacturers actually aligns itself with these critiques, so that the major themes of the criticisms of industrialized food production become selling points for organic products. This kind of branding sends the message that the best way for consumers to act on their concerns about the food industry is to buy different products from the same people-a very limited definition of activism indeed.To make this argument, I begin by providing a brief outline of common critiques of the food industry. I then discuss relevant rhetorical theory before describing my coding scheme and case study findings.PROBLEMS WITH FOODThroughout the late 1990s and the 2000s, concerns with the food industry became a topic of conversation and popular interest, as a number of books and documentaries critical of the food industry achieved widespread mainstream success. Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (2002) and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore 's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006) were both New York Times bestsellers, with the latter even winning a James Beard award. The documentary Supersize Me (2004) resulted in McDonald's discontinuation of the Supersize option, and Food, Inc. (2009) grossed over four million dollars and was nominated for an Academy Award. While the increasing prevalence of this kind of text merits serious study in its own right, for the purposes of this article I will discuss how they tend to emphasize the same concerns about the food industry: it is bad for the environment, bad for consumers' health, and bad for food culture. While these are, of course, not the only criticisms leveled against the food industry, they are certainly among the most prevalent. These criticisms may be familiar to readers, but I provide a brief overview of each below.EnvironmentA major critique of industrial agriculture is that it has negative consequences for the environment. Critics of the food industry allege that industrial agriculture is environmentally untenable due to the massive drain it puts on natural resources while simultaneously introducing toxic substances into the environment.These critiques hold that industrial agriculture is too taxing on natural resources to be sustainable. For instance, in The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan argues industrial agriculture is a food system reliant on fossil fuels (7). Industrial food production has also been criticized for draining natural resources and reducing biodiversity in both animal-based (Foer) and plant-based (Pollan Omnivore 's) agriculture. …