Good Earth: A Model of Responsible Business Practices

Last Thursday, March 7th, we were able to interview one of the Marin pioneers of the health food movement. Al Baylacq, Partner at Good Earth Natural Foods, INC. plays a major role at Fairfax’s acclaimed Good Earth market. Their mission statement is “to help the people of planet Earth by providing the finest natural and organic foods.” They are not only satisfying this goal within the community of Fairfax, but have involved themselves in a larger movement affecting the entire food industry.


GMOs
One of the primary means in which Good Earth achieves this goal is through their active participation in advocating the government mandated labeling of GMOs. A GMO is a genetically modified organism and is a relatively new and controversial innovation in the food industry. The major concern that Good Earth and it’s associates in the cause have found is that they still don’t know what effect GMO’s may hold on human health. . What is particularly concerning is that even within the limited studies that have been conducted regarding the effects of GMOs, approximately 90% of the research comes from the industry itself. The only substantial evidentiary proof they have is that since the surgence of GMOS in 2000, gluten intolerance has grown.

However, due to the biased nature of the research, one can only speculate as to it’s effects and as the practice is new, the long term effects are inherently unknown as well. Furthermore, two of the largest claims of the industry- that GMO’s produce higher yields and less pesticides have proven to be blatant lies. The team fighting GMO’s feel opposed to selling altered food with unknown to clients and, more importantly, feel as though at minimum, they should inform their customers. Enabling informed decisions is one of the largest goals of Good Earth.
Unfortunately, this decision to inform and help consumers isn’t one that comes quickly to many large corporations. Working at Good Earth, Al is able to interact with the people who his food is either helping or harming every day. Meanwhile in many large corporations, consumers are distant from decision makers and mere figures in the profit equation to be manipulated. Due to this distance and the abstract role that customers hold, there is often an insensitivity to the result the products. In many cases, the profit motive overrides morals. One of the largest beliefs that dictates the action of Al and his associates is the notion of “doing the right thing first”. He compares the unfortunate profit motive present in most of the food industry to the one in health care and believes that the well being of the individual one serves must be the foremost priority.
One of the major deterrents to people adopting healthier diets is a matter of resource. Health food is generally only prevalent in relatively affluent, educated areas and even within those regions, is generally expensive. Al also explained that he doesn’t see organic food getting any cheaper due to current energy costs and government subsidies. However, the increased price in production and correlating increased sale price (and the consequential risk of less consumption that entails) is a risk that health food stores are willing to take if it means securing the health of its customers.



We Only Need 5%
Despite the monopolizing power that these corporations may hold, Al reassured us that the situation is far from hopeless. He explained that a mere 5% rejection of a product by customers has proven to substantiate action and adaption on the part of the manufacturer.

The store has employed various methods of labeling their foods. One example that Al gave was on the health status of different fish they sold; they ranked each manufacturer from green to red. Al explained that while the ‘red’ items may have been less expensive, they would remain on the shelf. This corroborates their belief that informing the public would help decrease demand of unhealthy foods and would consequently pressure food corporations to adapt their products to make them more healthy for the human body and environment. He feels that one of the most efficient means of spreading this awareness has been through the social media. Goodearth and fellow GMO-fighters are confident that, because the convention food industry has been flat in sales, it wouldn’t require a large movement for them to rid their products of GMOs.


Vegetarianism: A Powerful Green Choice
Another way Al suggested we can help in the movement towards becoming ‘green’ is to become a vegetarian. He explained that in purchasing food we must consider that ratio of input to output. For example, the water required in the entire process of growing a cow for slaughter in one year (including cultivation of it’s food) is more than some entire small village use in a year. Another example of a, more sustainable, yet still troubling ratio, is the salmon. The approximate input to output ratio for salmon production is 3:1.

However, Al understands that the prospect of eliminating meat entirely is not a reasonable one for many. Because of this, he suggested eating more chicken- whose maintenance and production requires less energy than other animals. He also recommended to only eat grassfed cow and wild fish to reduce our environmental impact with meat consumption.





Al reiterated the power that we consumers have be stating that “consumers vote with pocketbooks.” While Al and his partners in the food industry fight behind the scenes to enable our informed decisions, all we have to do is pay closer attention and sacrifice those extra dollars to support companies taking initiatives to ensure that only healthy products enter our bodies.