Silk Mistaken for "Organic" Long After Transition to "Natural"
Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 12:07PM 
The other day I was shopping at Whole Foods when I came across a large yellow sign advertising a sale on "Organic Soymilk" in front of a large refrigerator case of Silk soymilk. Although I was in a rush to get home, this stopped me in my tracks because I knew that Silk soymilk has transitioned from "organic" to "natural" ingredients. It kind of amazed me that more than a month since Silk dropped the organic label, it is still being advertised as such.
Just to make sure I wasn't mistaken, I took a closer look at the Silk labeling and then the ingredient list where there was not one organic ingredient listed. I found a friendly Whole Foods staff member and explained the situation to him. He was very apologetic and took the sign down immediately.
It made me wonder though, if even Whole Foods staff are confused by the Silk transition, how do consumers perceive the Silk brand? Do they still think they're buying organic soymilk?
-Dorothee
Reader Comments (4)
I am new to social networking and stumbled across this via my Twitter (cncrfree - that's me on Twitter). I appreciated this article so much! I am a cancer survivor and I am transitioning my diet away from all of the nasty eating habits that I had to new and healthy, disease reversing eating habits. Thanks for addressing Natural vs Organic!
Keen eye Dorothee! I used to go through Bartlett (UofC Dining Hall) with a Sharpie pen to relabel the various vegan/vegetarian mislabeling appropriately. This eventually lead to more lasting change by talking with Aramark managers/employees, but I still felt like those in the industry should have taken the initiative on internal education.
Way to go Doro! Good that you caught it, good that they fixed it, and good that you documented the whole thing. Maybe Organic Nation should have a "greenwashing" contest - some hip organic tote bag drawing for people who send in false organic advertising that they get corrected....
For 6 years I used to make the signs for whole foods market, and let me tell you all. Whoever is making the signs, really doesn't care about the changes made to the brand. There should have been an internal email sent from the regional and national dairy buyers to the stores, but i'm sure like most of whole foods internal communication, it failed. The signmakers at each store are just given a list of products to make signs for, they're not gonna take the time to check each item. Each signmakers at each store has way too much on their hands to do that. After working for whole foods for so long it's really funny to know how the internal structure of whole foods works while the average customer has no idea how dysfunctional the organization really is. and on a last note...whatever sale price you see in the seafood department....whole foods is still making a 100% profit from the sale.