If customers aren't yet querying your sales staff about organic goods, they may be soon: Wal-Mart Stores recently announced it will stock up to 400 organic food goods by summer's end, a move experts agree could push the organic movement toward mainstream America.

"They have huge potential because it's not just Wal-Mart we're talking about, it's their entire supply chain," Jeff Erikson, U.S. director of London-based consultancy and research group SustainAbility, said to MSNBC.com.

Wal-Mart's organic push is part of a larger environmental movement engineered by the company's management, a movement the company says it launched to "meet consumer demand" and "cut energy costs." Critics, however, say the initiative is simply a shrewd way for the company to recover from bad press in recent years. Moreover, some say the organic effort could hurt local businesses -- a charge that led to some of that bad press in the past -- pulling "green" consumers away from local farmers in favor of Wal-Mart's organic offerings.

"I think the direction they've said is a positive direction. The question is, are they are going to go there strongly enough?" Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, who is a board member of the union-backed group Wal-Mart Watch that criticizes the retailer, said to MSNBC.

Still, critics and supporters agree on at least one point: With 4,000 U.S. stores and more than 2,200 stores internationally, Wal-Mart's decision to put more energy into sustainability and organic products will have pronounced repercussions on the retail industry, "forcing suppliers and competitors to keep up," according to the story.

"We love to see companies like Wal-Mart taking a big step and making pronouncements as they have, because their tentacles are so large," Erikson said.

--Mary Westbrook
mwestbrook@safnow.org

 

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