AUSTIN, Texas — Citing confusion in the marketplace, Whole Foods Market Inc. is cracking down on organic standards for personal-care products.
Numerous products such as soaps and shampoos tout themselves as being “organic” or made with organic materials — but those claims aren’t regulated by the government.
And because there is no regulation, “you’ll see an organic shampoo that may have a very small percentage of organic ingredients, or one organic ingredient,” said Joe Dickson, Whole Foods’ food, organic and environmental quality standards coordinator.
Starting next June, Whole Foods will require that its suppliers of personal-care products making organic claims meet the same U.S. Department of Agriculture standards as food does. That means products billed as “organic” must be made with more than 95 percent organic ingredients. Those products advertised as being made with organic ingredients must have at least 70 percent organic ingredients.
The move will boost consumer confidence in organic labeling, Dickson said, while giving credit to companies that already make authentically organic products.
Some companies, frustrated with poseur competitors, are happy with the changes.
One Whole Foods supplier, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, is recognized as a leader in the organic personal-care product field.
To accomplish that, the company has invested “substantially” in its supply chains, said David Bronner, president of the Escondido, Calif.-based Dr. Bronner’s.
But “we’re on a shelf with products that are making even stronger organic claims than we are, that are not based in organic materials in any of their major ingredients,” Bronner said.
Whole Foods has the clout within the industry to lead a change, he said. “It’s going to more or less create a de facto regulated market,” he said.
