AR-News: (U.S.) mad cows & factory farms create boom for organic processors

[Mary Finelli]

GOLD RUSH
Mad cows and factory farms create a niche boom for organic processors — and 
the big boys have noticed.
Meat Processing, Nicole Zaro Stahl, March 2004

complete article at:
http://www.meatnews.com/mp/northamerican/dsp_article_mp.cfm?artNum=656


It’s a classic textbook case: a few small companies discover an area of 
untapped consumer demand and nimbly respond to create an alternative market. 
For a while they grow and prosper, mining the new-found niche, but 
eventually the corporate Goliaths think they can add a few zeros to the 
bottom line, and they decide to enter the fray. With their extensive 
resources and marketing muscle, it’s not too long before they transform a 
cottage industry into a burgeoning mainstream business, banishing most of 
the little guys from the playing field in the process.

   Is this the future in the organic and natural meat and poultry processing 
arena? Judging from what happened in the produce sector, it seems like a 
real possibility. When large shippers entered the organic scene in the 
mid-1990s, recalls one organic farmer in northern California, they 
drastically changed the market for small to mid-size fruit and vegetable 
growers. The big guys used low pricing as a cudgel to overtake smaller 
growers and gain market share, says Warren Weber, owner of Star Route Farms 
in Bolinas, Calif., and a pioneer in today’s organic food industry. Prices 
have since recovered somewhat, but now, Weber notes, fewer than 10 producers 
are doing 80 percent of the wholesale organic business, compared to the 50 
or more growers who operated in that space just 10 years ago.

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