Who Owns Organic Food Brands?

FitSugar — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:45:00 -0700

When buying organic and natural-food brands, such as Kashi and Naked Juice, you may think you're supporting small, independent companies. But often these brands are actually owned by major conglomerates: Kellogg, in the case of Kashi, and Pepsi for Naked Juice.

I was excited to find this very cool chart in the latest issue of Good magazine, which breaks down most of the major natural brands by their corporate owners. For the details, read more.

Some of these definitely did not surprise me: I figured that Morningstar Farms had a corporate owner, and I've read before that Muir Glen is owned by General Mills. However, I had no idea that the Heinz subsidiary Hain Celestial owned so many small companies! Westsoy, Casbah, Shariann's, and more. Check out the entire chart here.

I'm not suggesting you should avoid these brands just because they have corporate owners. But it might help you decide where to put your money if there are certain companies whose policies you disagree with. I'm curious, does corporate ownership affect your buying habits?

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