Editorial Review:

Who would have thought that a natural food supermarket could have been a financial refuge from the dot-com bust? But it had. Sales of organic food had shot up about 20 percent per year since 1990, reaching $11 billion by 2003 . . . Whole Foods managed to sidestep that fray by focusing on, well, people like me. Organic food has become a juggernaut in an otherwise sluggish food industry, growing at 20 percent a year as products like organic ketchup and corn chips vie for shelf space with conventional comestibles. But what is organic food? Is it really better for you? Where did it come from, and why are so many of us buying it? Business writer Samuel Fromartz set out to get the story behind this surprising success after he noticed that his own food choices were changing with the times. In Organic, Inc., Fromartz traces organic food back to its anti-industrial origins more than a century ago. Then he follows it forward again, casting a spotlight on the innovators who created an alternative way of producing food that took root and grew beyond their wildest expectations. In the process he captures how the industry came to risk betraying the very ideals that drove its success in a classically complex case of free-market triumph.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

Insight into the organic movement:

"Organic Inc" by Samuel Fromartz offers a good introduction to the natural food movement. Written primarily for a popular audience, the book combines research with short histories, case studies and profiles of prominent personalities and companies that have shaped the industry. Although the author's frequent interjections about his own personal experiences and infatuations with organics becomes somewhat annoying, overall the book succeeds in granting insight into the organic movement, its foundational... more info

Organic as an Industry:

I have been very ambivalent about the organic culture and wanted to understand more about the origins of the organic movement, its significance, and the trends I observe it to be following.
Samuel Fromartz's account of the organic industry (as I have come to see it) was a solid introduction that I will have to probably reread to fully take in. Peppered with facts, figures, vignettes, anecdotes, and opinions, it is clearly the writing of the converted, rather than a deliberately skeptical examination.... more info

A place for organic in your life:

When you think of organic foods, do you mentally picture aging hippies in co-ops, small roadside stands, and stores with counter-cultural values? That image was probably valid until the 1980's, but has rapidly been displaced since.
Organic foods sales grew at 20 percent per year during the 1990s, attracting the attention of the food business. In the process, organic went mainstream and became an accepted niche market at grocery chains and even big-box retailers such as WalMart and Target. The author's... more info

Organic Inc.:

I enjoyed this book. It was a great introduction to the organic world.

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