By STACY ALBIN (NYT) 1182 words
Published: September 18, 2005
HOW do you build a business in a field
that is, by its nature, allergic to ''business''? That is the conundrum
facing organic-food entrepreneurs on Long Island.
The very idea of certified organic food is a rejection of the mainstream
food industry and all its practices. Customers, employees and suppliers
alike may be animated as much by personal and political beliefs
as by ordinary economic motives, and scowl at anything smacking
of crass capitalism.
Ask Melanie Mitzner what she and her business partner, Nicke Gorney,
are doing, for example, and she answers, ''Trading in higher consciousness.''
Their company, www.thegroovymind.com,
sells socially responsible gift boxes including organic coffees,
tea, chocolate and eco-friendly goods online, stressing that no
pesticides or chemicals are used in growing or manufacturing. The
company makes an effort to buy many of its products from countries
with ''fair trade'' policies meant to guarantee farmers a certain
income regardless of fluctuations in world commodity prices.
The company's organic and fair-trade policies mean its costs are
higher and its profit margins narrower than they might be otherwise,
but the owners don't mind. Making a living is important, Ms. Mitzner
said, but the main goal is ''buying, selling and promoting products
that are socially responsible and environmentally sustainable --
because after all, that's all we've got as people on this planet.''
The company, based in Greenport, opened its Web site, www.thegroovymind.com,
in March, and sold about 10 pounds of coffee the first month; now
sales are in the hundreds of pounds, Ms. Mitzner said.
In any business, building up a following takes work. Ms. Mitzner
said that for certified organic retailers, simple advertising often
won't be enough to attract customers; she and her partner have used
techniques ranging from giving away samples to seeking favorable
mentions on Web logs.
Others in the field say recommendations are crucial. ''The new people
are mostly sent here by word of mouth,'' said Michael Makinajian,
whose family owns the 6.5-acre Makinajian Poultry Farm and Country
Store in Huntington, selling organic poultry, eggs and vegetables.
Mr. Makinajian said his family is fortunate to be operating in a
thriving residential community full of potential customers. Organic
farmers in rural areas often must travel to weekend farmers' markets
in distant towns to sell their produce.
There are 13 certified organic farms on Long Island, according to
the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, part of a
burgeoning nationwide industry. Sales of organic labeled products
across the country came to $12.2 billion last year, double the figure
for 2000, according to the Organic Trade Association, a group based
in Greenfield, Mass., that represents growers, retailers and farmers'
associations.
''The majority of people who are in this industry just didn't wake
up and decide to be in it,'' said June Stoyer, the president of
OrganicUniverse, a juice and food retailer based in Wantagh. ''The
majority are in it for personal reasons.''
Reputations are important in the industry, she said: ''Word of mouth
is definitely a very big issue. It's a tightknit community. It tends
to get very, very political.''
Home-grown businesses like the Makinajian farm, established in the
late 1940's, take a great deal of effort to operate, Mr. Makinajian
said. He and his father, Edward, and sister, Christina, put in 10
to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, attending to their animals and
crops and to the customers in their retail store, at the entrance
to the farm.
Growing consumer interest in organic products, and the higher prices
they tend to command, have attracted the attention of mainstream
supermarket chains like Waldbaum's, which have added organic fruits
and vegetables to produce sections and set aside shelf space for
organic dry goods. The chain's Long Beach store, for instance, has
a substantial section devoted to ''healthy'' products including
organics.
Christina Makinajian said that a similar phenomenon is at work among
farmers, some of whom are converting all or part of their conventional
farms to organic methods. ''I think it's great,'' Ms. Makinajian
said. ''The more organic land, the better.''
Ms. Stoyer said she hoped the growth would reduce prices. But as
things are, she said, dabblings in organic food by conventional
retailers often lack appeal: ''A customer is probably thinking,
'Why should I spend more money?'''
Consumers are not always clear about what ''certified organic''
means, Ms. Stoyer said. The average shopper ''thinks it's some kind
of marketing scheme,'' she said.
In fact, the United States Department of Agriculture has regulated
commercial use of the label since 2001, according to Holly Givens,
a spokeswoman for the Organic Trade Association. To be certified,
any company selling more than $5,000 worth of products a year must
not use any synthetic chemicals, pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers,
must not fertilize with sewage sludge and must not use genetically
engineered plants or animals.
For a product to be sold as ''certified organic,'' every company
in the chain of production must be accredited by the department,
whose agents visit farmers and processors annually to review records.
To pass inspection, Mr. Makinajian said, he keeps receipts to show
where his animal feed and plant seeds came from. ''It's good, because
it keeps the integrity of what we did intact,'' he said.
On his family's farm, where his grandparents and father started
selling chickens around 1949, the fertilizer for crops is made from
organic compost, which includes manure and leaves. Mr. Makinajian
said the farm has always been organic -- ''we didn't know how to
do it any other way'' -- and the federal regulations made little
difference in his operations. But customers do not seem to understand
the organic concept any better now than before the rules were enacted,
he said.
Mr. Makinajian himself swears by organic food, for its purity if
nothing else. He spoke skeptically of food-industry practices like
repeatedly spraying strawberries with chemicals, or exposing bananas
to gases to speed up ripening.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company