Trader Joe’s is widely viewed as a “green” company, attracting droves of eco-minded consumers who view its cozy, Hawaiian-themed stores as a cheaper alternative to Whole Foods or the neighborhood co-op. But as Sustainable Industries points out, it’s difficult to know how sustainable its operations really are—the company is “notoriously tight-lipped” about where its store-brand products come from.

A report on organic dairies from the Cornucopia Institute, a sustainable-agriculture watchdog group, warns consumers to be vigilant about the explosive growth in these sorts of “organic” store brands. Private-label organics like those in Trader Joe’s “seem to contradict what many thought the organic movement was all about: consumers understanding where their food comes from and how it is produced,” the report states. The Trader Joe’s brand of milk, for example, claims to be organic—but it won’t disclose which dairies it buys from. Ditto for the soybeans it uses in its brands of soy milk, tofu, and other products. And a recent report found that its store brand of veggie burgers are made using hexane-extracted soy protein.

“It’s a delicate balance for Trader Joes’s,” notes Sustainable Industries, “because while its customers want low prices for ‘natural’ grub, typically part of the value customers get out of Trader Joe’s is not just that its prices are low, but that they’re low for products that are perceived to be of high value.”

On a few occasions, customers have demanded certain standards: Widespread requests for cage-free eggs and GMO-free foods have been met throughout the company’s stores—according to Trader Joe’s, at least. “Neither claim is backed by a third-party auditing mechanism,” according to Sustainable Industries.

The company did recently agree to revamp its seafood policies, after a lengthy campaign by Greenpeace to get red-list fish out of its stores (“Traitor Joe’s”). Trader Joe’s has already removed the highly endangered orange roughy and red snapper from its shelves, and promises to “phase out” other frowned-upon fish by the end of 2012.

That’s a solid sustainable step—but if Trader Joe’s is going to live up to its reputation, it’s got a lot of fancy frozen meals and bags of trail mix to account for. For now, “customers are accepting that ignorance is bliss,” writes Sustainable Industries. “After all, it’s what keeps the prices low and the Two-Buck Chuck flowing.”

Source: Sustainable Industries

According to the USDA’s new organic standards (released in February), organic dairy cows must get at least 30 percent of their dry matter intake from pasture. No exceptions. Producers of organic beef cattle, however, can put their animals in feedlots for the last four months of their lives. You know, standing on concrete, eating grain, packing on the pounds. I have a word for this, and it is lame.

Luckily, the Cornucopia Institute is on the case and in their signature thorough style, the nonprofit has done far more than just point out the fuzzy logic in the USDA’s organic regulations: It surveyed organic beef cattle producers across the United States. The organization found that 80 percent of organic beef producers never confine their animals to feedlots. (Most never give their cattle any grain at all; only a quarter supplement with small amounts.) The remaining 20 percent of farmers and ranchers that are finishing animals in feedlots, however, “likely produce a majority of the nation’s organic meet supply.”

Here’s the good news: The USDA is accepting comments on the pasture exemption for beef cattle until April 19^th. The Cornucopia Institute provides instructions toward the bottom of the page I linked to above. It is proposing a three-tiered labeling system:

1. “Organic – Grain Finished” – For meat from animals that needed the exemption from pasture during the last 120 days (might include finishing in feedlots).

2. “Organic – Pasture/Grain Finished” – For meat from animals that were maintained on pasture until slaughter, obtained at least 30% of their feed intake from pasture during the grazing season but received small amounts of grain supplementation at some point.

3. “Organic – 100% Grass Fed” – For meat from animals that were 100% grass-fed, never receiving any grain in their diet.

Food for thought, as they say.

Source: Cornucopia Institute

You can be forgiven if you’ve grown somewhat cynical about food labeling in the organic and natural aisle: Lately it always seems to turn out that brands with names like Grandma’s Garden are fabricated and owned by Acme Evil Megafoods Inc. At EcoSalon, Vanessa Barrington sizes up 10 big organic and natural food brands to explore who owns what, and what they’re putting into their products.

Can you guess which of the following brands on the list are still independently owned, even though they’ve grown large enough to make it to your local market?

• Amy’s
• Arrowhead Mills
• Cascadian Farms
• Eden
• Horizon
• Nature’s Path
• Newman’s Own Organics
• Organic Valley
• Stonyfield
• White Wave/Silk

Read Barrington’s full post at EcoSalon for her thoughtful analysis and commentary on these 10 brands. The website has become a must-bookmark destination for people interested in solid, sane advice on living green. Recent topics have included the Purell-ification of flu-panicked America, a new Levi’s clothing tag that promotes Goodwill donations, and seven delicious non-tofu meat alternatives.

Thanks, Alternet.

Image by arincrumley, licensed under Creative Commons.

Source: EcoSalon