Survival of the Richest: Small Organic Companies vs. Mega Corporations

In a fast food chain world run by large corporations, you may be starting to realize how important it is to you to buy from smaller, local, and organic suppliers. You might have a personal relationship with these suppliers, which can lead to a reassurance that you can trust their products.

But, what happens when the small, organic company can't compete anymore with a large corporation and gets bought out?

Sadly, this is slowly happening all over the country.

You might remember when the news broke that natural and organic company, Annie's, was bought out by one of the largest food companies, General Mills, for $820 million. Annie's made promises (and garnered a huge following and millions in sales to back those promises) that their products are organic and contain no preservatives or artificial flavoring... which General Mills products are known to contain.

How does something like this happen?

With the growing awareness of unhealthy chemicals, unnecessary added ingredients, and artificial flavors in many of the "standard" foods today, organic products were created to give you the choice to eat food without any of these artificial ingredients. And, people have been taking note; organic products have been in demand over the past few years. Maybe this awareness poses a threat to the large corporations, or it's simply cheaper to buy out a company rather than change current products or start producing new ones.

You may be wondering, once a buyout happens, if the organic products actually stay organic or if the product merges with the heavily processed, synthetic foods they once were separating from.

Owner of Mother Earth Foods, David Hawkins, MH, CNC, joins Dr. Holly to share why organic buyouts happen, if there's a positive outcome in an organic buyout, and how smaller, organic companies are trying to survive in the midst of large corporations.