Whole Foods will Require Certification for Organic Health and Beauty Products
When the labels on beauty and body care products claim that they are organic, are they really organic or do they simply say it's organic to boost sales?
At the moment, no federal agency checks the many claims made by manufacturers of personal care and cosmetic items and none of us fancy being a sucker in spending more money on products that are only organic in their claims.
Just who should be in charge of enforcing those claims has been the topic of some debate. A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said that her agency and the Agriculture Department are working together to create new labeling standards for the beauty and body care industry, but no projected due date has been set.
Since the U.S. government has not yet legislated a requirement for manufacturers to certify their products, and it won't do so any time soon, Whole Foods is leading the way by creating its own requirement that all health and beauty products making organic claims be certified by either the Agriculture Department's National Organic Program or NSF International, a nonprofit based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that issues its own certification mark.
As of June 1, 2011, products that make organic claims but don't carry certification will be removed from the shelves of Whole Foods stores. The company will continue to carry non-organic products as long as they don't make organic claims.
The issue of required certification will be contentious. There are those who see any form of regulation by the government or by retailers as an infringement of personal rights and a waste of resources to boot. These people argue that small businesses and cottage industries that produce artisan soaps and other beauty or body care products on a small scale might not be able to afford to pay for organic certification, which raises the question of fairness. Is it fair that only large corporations with robust profit margins be the ones who can afford to pay for certification and, therefore, be the only ones to tap into the market of organic products?
Then, there are those who believe that plant-based extracts are just as questionable as petrochemical-based synthetics. These people view an apple and crude oil as being the same, in that they both come out of the earth.
Regardless of whether a consumer wants accurate labeling or not, apart from advertising, labels serve to inform consumers. But without accurate, honest, and standard certification, consumers cannot tell if a purchase is genuinely organic or if it's merely a sales gimmick.
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