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Big Food Just Bought Your Favorite Organic Mac and Cheese Company
http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/09/09/general-mills-buys-annies-homegrown?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2014-09-09
General Mills has purchased Annie's Homegrown for $820 million.
September 09, 2014 By Willy Blackmore Willy Blackmore is TakePart’s Food editor.
A ix-ounce box of Annie’s Homegrown macaroni and cheese runs about $2, if you’re buying it online. Yesterday, General Mills bought the 25-year-old company for the equivalent of 410 million boxes of its signature product—the second-best-selling boxed mac and cheese in the country. The $820 million purchase put Annie’s in the food giant's ever-growing portfolio of organic brands, including Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen. It's a trend that, as the infographic below shows, is echoing across the industry.
The Annie's Homegrown brand has long been seen as a healthier version of the corporate, chemical-orange alternative; it has been a big business in its own right. But it has balanced multimillion-dollar sales figures—$204 million in 2013, up 20 percent from the previous year—with a mission “to cultivate a healthier, happier world by spreading goodness through nourishing foods, honest words and conduct that is considerate and forever kind to the planet," as a 2012 filing with federal security regulators, ahead of its IPO, read.
So much of Annie’s appeal was its ethical flavor,” Jesse Doris wrote at Slate last October. “Buying the bunny meant supporting small farmers, and macaroni and cheese became an act of subversion—sticking a fork into pasta was sticking it to The Man!” She goes on to tell of a more grassroots investor campaign the company launched in 1994, when Annie’s included “notices of the direct public offering alongside the sauce packets and shells in all the bunny’s boxes.”
Throughout the years, the company increased its social commitments as its sales boomed. While General Mills did recently announce new measures to limit its carbon emissions, it's not known for championing causes other than the bottom line. So while the ingredient labels on a box of Annie’s mac and cheese will surely remain the same—the company's CEO tells KQED it will continue to support organic and sustainable farms—the philosophy behind the purple bunny box is likely to change.
Infographic at link.
27 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
In 1968, Tom and Kate Chappell left Philadelphia, where Tom worked for an insurance company, and moved to rural Kennebunk, Maine. As part of their goal to simplify their lives, they sought out natural, unprocessed foods and, unadulterated products.
Unable to find natural personal care options for themselves and their children, in 1970 Tom and Kate decided to create and sell their own. They began with a $5,000 loan from a friend and the philosophy that their products would not harm the environment.
From this small start, Tom's of Maine grew and developed into a different kind of company, one based on the belief that people and nature deserve respect. Over the years our product line moved from non-phosphate laundry detergent to natural personal care products such as the first natural toothpaste (1975) and deodorant (1976).
We've grown in size and in 2006, we became part of the Colgate-Palmolive Company. But our simple, direct approach hasn't changed one bit: we listen to what our customers want (and don't want) in their products, we learn how it can be done, and we respond with effective natural, sustainable and responsible solutions.
http://www.tomsofmaine.com/company
Unable to find natural personal care options for themselves and their children, in 1970 Tom and Kate decided to create and sell their own. They began with a $5,000 loan from a friend and the philosophy that their products would not harm the environment.
From this small start, Tom's of Maine grew and developed into a different kind of company, one based on the belief that people and nature deserve respect. Over the years our product line moved from non-phosphate laundry detergent to natural personal care products such as the first natural toothpaste (1975) and deodorant (1976).
We've grown in size and in 2006, we became part of the Colgate-Palmolive Company. But our simple, direct approach hasn't changed one bit: we listen to what our customers want (and don't want) in their products, we learn how it can be done, and we respond with effective natural, sustainable and responsible solutions.
http://www.tomsofmaine.com/company
I've used Tom's products for many years and when I learned that the company was bought by Colgate, I shuddered to think what would happen to the products and philosophy of Tom's. So far, it doesn't look like anything's changed with the ingredients or company, but I still wonder why a big Mega-Food Corporation would be interested in buying a small, organic-food company.
My local grocery store just stopped selling most of my favorite non-GMO products, made by an independent company. I live in a rural area, and I am a vegetarian, and will now be forced to drive 50 miles just to buy reasonably priced these non-GMO products that I like.
Of course, there's plenty of BIG FOOD GMO CHEMICAL LACED "vegetarian" crap still available at my local grocery store.
RIP, Annies.
So much for that. 
