Big Organic Just Got Bigger

Vegetarians and tofu-lovers could be buying their food from a different food maker, as the nation's largest maker of organic groceries has agreed to buy the maker of WhiteWave and TofuTown tofu and mock-meat products. The Melville, N.Y.-based Hain Celestial Group has been growing fast -- it recently acquired three other meat-free and non-dairy beverage producers in the United States and Britain -- and is the supplier of dozens of recognizable organic and natural brand names. As organic products grow more popular and producers consolidate, two things happen: the demand for organically farmed produce grows, which reduces the amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides sprayed, and the die-hard organic fans fret over the industrial scale of the industry. In other words, the sustainability debate over small and local versus big and organic rages on, according to a story in the May 31 Newsday.