Oser Communications Group

BY LORRIE BAUMANN The real reason to be concerned about genetically engineered crops is not food safety. Rather it's the in- creased use of the herbicide glyphosate that's made possible, and perhaps even inevitable, by these crops, according to Gary Hirshberg, Chairman of the advo- cacy organization Just Label It! as well as Chairman and former Pres- ident and CEO of Stonyfield Farm. Glyphosate, the active ingredi- ent in Monsanto's Roundup herbi- cide, was called "probably carcinogenic to humans" in May by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organization. In BY LORRIE BAUMANN The U.S. Department of Agri- culture has just released figures that tell us how well organic farmers are doing in the mar- ketplace. The big surprise? While U.S. sales of organic food products broke records this year, the number of acres of farmland devoted to organic agriculture in this country de- clined between 2008 and 2014. The USDA found 14,540 or- ganic farms in the U.S. in 2008, compared to 14,093 in 2014. The number of acres devoted to organic production declined from just over 4 million in American Demand for Organic Food Outstrips U.S. Production Continued on PAGE 10 Continued on PAGE 8 Continued on PAGE 6 2008 to 3.67 million in 2014. The figures come from the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, which gath- ered information on all known certified organic, exempt and transitioning organic farms throughout the U.S. in the first few months of this year. "Ex- empt" refers to farms that fol- low national organic standards but have less than $5,000 in an- nual sales. These farms are al- lowed to use the term "organic;" they just can't use the USDA Organic seal. Transition- ing farms are those that are con- verting acreage to organic production but haven't reached the three-year period under or- ganic management that's re- quired before produce raised on that acreage can be certified as organic. While the acreage devoted to organic agriculture in this coun- try has fallen, purchases of or- ganic food have been growing. In the U.S. last year, consumers spent $35.9 billion on organic food, representing 4 percent of total food sales, and an 11 per- cent increase over the previous year, according to the Organic Trade Association. The majority of American households in all regions of the country now pur- chase organic food, from 68 to almost 80 percent of house- holds in southern states to nearly 90 percent on the West Coast and in New England, the OTA says. The total market value of or- ganic agricultural products sold by American farmers in 2014 was $5.5 billion, of which $3.3 billion was for crops, including vegeta- bles, fruit, nuts, grain, hay and soybeans, and $2.2 billion was livestock, poultry and products like milk and eggs. Milk is by far Joel Salatin on Defying Food Myths Herbicide Proliferation and Cancer Link Enough Reason to Require GMO Labeling, Says Advocate the same report, IARC classified the insecticides malathion and di- azinon as probably carcinogenic to humans and the insecticides tetra- chlorvinphos and parathion as pos- sibly carcinogenic to humans. The report notes limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non- Hodgkin's lymphoma and lung cancer with evidence from studies of exposures in the U.S., Canada and Sweden published since 2001. "In addition, there is convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory ani- mals," the report notes. That report prompted the French government to ban sales of glyphosate to consumers, and re- tailers in Germany have begun vol- untarily pulling products contain- ing glyphosate from their shelves, according to Chemical & Engi- neering News. Monsanto has asked Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy to convene a panel of experts to review the IARC report and points to a statement by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, which says it's too soon to say what the IARC report means because there are a number of long-term studies of the effects of glyphosate on mice and rats that were not considered by IARC. "IARC received and purposefully BY LORRIE BAUMANN Just as California's Silicon Valley has a justly deserved worldwide reputation as a center of excel- lence in computing and informa- tion technology, Italy has a "Food Valley" with an equally deserved worldwide reputation, according to Massimo Cannas. Cannas is an Italian-American food importer and broker who's a familiar figure in the exhibit halls of the Fancy Food Shows, partic- ularly in the Italian food areas, as Continued on PAGE 10 Authentic Italian Food at a Fair Price from Cibo California well as throughout the entire spe- cialty food industry. He founded specialty food brokerage MAXCO International in 1995 and has clients across the country. Now, he's expanding his enter- prises with the founding of Cibo California, a new specialty food import business based in southern California. Federico Pavoncelli is the company's Co-Founder and Executive Vice President. "I am so proud that he has joined the com- pany and shares its vision," Can- nas says. "He is a great person that I respect very much." As President and CEO of Cibo California, Cannas plans to source a wide se- lection of authentic Italian food specialties and import them into the U.S. He and his partners, all first-generation BY LORRIE BAUMANN Every society has its orthodox- ies, and some of them look fool- ish later. One of today's is that cheap food and high quality can happen at the same time, says Joel Salatin, a full-time farmer in the Shenan- doah Valley of Virginia and a leader in the American sustainable farming movement. "Five hundred fifty years ago, you would have been laughed out of the room if you'd dared to suggest that the Earth was round. The flat Earth idea was quite ubiquitous in the world and that was the ortho- doxy of the day. We look back and laugh," he told an enthusias- tic audience during a keynote speech in Baltimore at this year's Natural Products Expo East. Americans spend a smaller percentage of their total con- sumer expenditures on food than do the residents of any other country in the world, ac- cording to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are coun- tries where residents spend less per capita on their food, but VOLUME 80, NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 2015 n $7.00 RETAILER NEWS n Drop in for a Fresh Welcome at Urban Radish PAGE 12 SUPPLIER BUSINESS n Gourmet Sausage from the Heart of Montana PAGE 13 NATURALLY HEALTHY n Quinoa with a Conscience PAGE 16 PRIVATE 2015 n PAGE 17 BUYERS GUIDE n Wine, Spirits & Cocktail Mixers PAGE 29 SMALL ELECTRICS n Food Processors PAGE 30 News & Notes.................................5 Ad Index .......................................31 Smorgasbord ................................31 www.gourmetnews.com BUYERS GUIDE: Wines, Spirits & Cocktail Mixers SEE PAGE 29 PRIVATE 2015 SEE PAGE 17 G OURMET N EWS T H E B U S I N E S S N E W S P A P E R F O R T H E G O U R M E T I N D U S T R Y ® SMALL ELECTRICS: Food Processors SEE PAGE 30

• Cover