The Cornucopia Institute has filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA asking it to investigate allegations of illegal organic food distribution by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Cornucopia says it has documented cases of nonorganic food products being sold as organic in Wal-Mart’s grocery departments.
“We first noticed that Wal-Mart was using in-store signage to misidentify conventional, nonorganic food as organic in their upscale-market test store in Plano, Texas,” said Mark Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute. Subsequently, Cornucopia staff visited a number of other Wal-Mart stores in the Midwest and documented similar improprieties in both produce and dairy sections.
Cornucopia notified Wal-Mart’s CEO Lee Scott in a letter on September 13, 2006 alerting the company to the problem and asking that it address and correct the situation on an immediate basis. But the same product misrepresentations were again observed weeks later, throughout October, at separate Wal-Mart stores in multiple states.
The Cornucopia Institute’s legal complaint and its report on Wal-Mart and organic food sales can be found at www.cornucopia.org