Customers vote organic milk:

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http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-milk21.html

 

Consumers milking organic producers for all they've got

March 21, 2006

 

BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter

 

Organic milk is moving so fast off the shelves at some Chicago-area stores that

if you phone to see whether it's in stock, workers offer to put it on hold for

you.

 

" We can hold the milk for you for about an hour,'' a staffer at Trader Joe's in

Glenview said Monday.

 

" For the next month or so, [supplies are] going to be erratic,'' said a worker

at Evanston's Wild Oats.

 

" I have only one kind right now. I keep ordering it, and it isn't coming,'' said

an employee at Jewel Foods in Elmhurst.

 

" We sell out within an hour,'' said a staffer at Trader Joe's in Naperville.

" Call first thing in the morning.''

 

Supplies were also low Monday at Trader Joe's in Orland Park, Glen Ellyn and

Lake Zurich.

 

" Definitely, Chicago is having shortages,'' said Theresa Marquez, chief

marketing executive for La Farge, Wis.-based Organic Valley, the largest organic

farming cooperative in the nation.

 

Shortages are " pretty pervasive around the U.S., " said Sue McGovern, Organic

Valley spokeswoman. " What we've seen every year is a 20 percent jump in

demand.''

 

The young organic farming industry hasn't been able to meet demand. " It takes a

minimum of three years for an organic farmer to be certified,'' McGovern said.

Pastures must be free of synthetic pesticides and herbicides for three years,

and cows must get organic feed for a year.

 

Supply should improve with spring

 

Shortages have been felt for a year or so, but are more keen now because cows

give less milk in winter, when they are kept indoors and fed grain and hay,

industry officials said. Things should improve in about a month as cows go out

to pasture, Marquez said.

 

And, some of the Midwest's supply of organic milk is being siphoned off. " The

Midwest now is being used to cover the East Coast,'' Marquez said.

 

A trickle-down effect may mean other shortages, too. " Where shoppers might

notice, is the products that are made with dairy -- cheeses, yogurts,'' said

Kate Lowery of Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods.

 

The shortages have prompted the industry to try to recruit organic dairy

farmers, said Barbara Haumann, spokeswoman for the Organic Trade Association.

 

modonnell

 

 

 

 

 

 

" Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest

of life by the power of the spirit. " - Aurobindo.