Wal-Mart and Faux organics

We noted this a while ago, but now PR Newswire/Yahoo! has picked up the story, and your local newspaper will probably carry the story, somewhere not on the front page, with about 2 column inches devoted to it.


onions


The Cornucopia Institute: Wal-Mart Slapped for Misleading Organic Consumers - Yahoo! News


Consumer fraud investigators in the state of Wisconsin released their findings this week after a three-month long investigation into allegations that Wal-Mart stores throughout the state of Wisconsin had misled consumers by misidentifying conventional food items as organic.

In a letter to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection stated they'd found numerous instances of conventional food products improperly labeled as organic by the retail chain. Specifically, Wisconsin authorities told Wal-Mart's legal counsel that “use of the term 'Wal-Mart Organics' in combination with reference to a specific non-organic product may be considered to be a misrepresentation and therefore a violation” of Wisconsin state statutes.

of course the FDA is hesitant to act, because the FDA is only supposed to protect corporations from consumers.

While Wisconsin regulators have completed their investigation, the USDA has yet to formally weigh in on the matter, despite being notified of the food fraud problem last November.

“A six-month period without any federal enforcement action is absolutely inexcusable when the largest corporation in the country is accused of defrauding organic consumers,” Kastel stated. Cornucopia provided photographic evidence and documentation to USDA investigators last November.

see more at http://www.cornucopia.org/

Tags: , /, /, /

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Seth A. published on May 9, 2007 8:38 AM.

links for 2007-05-09 was the previous entry in this blog.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Pages

Powered by Movable Type 4.37