ODWALLA PULLED FROM SHELVES

  
    

by JANET WELCH, Board President, and CINDY WOLPIN and JULIE JAMAN, Co-op Member-Owners

The Food Co-op has made the decision to boycott Odwalla, a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Corporation. In doing so, the Co-op joins the largest anti-corporate movement since the campaign against Nike for sweatshop abuses. The pressure on Coke is coming from the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, boycotts at over 130 colleges and universities worldwide, and action from the International Teamsters.

At the June Board of Directors meeting the Product Selection Guidelines Committee (PSGC), a board committee, brought the boycott request up for consideration. Within weeks, the Odwalla cooler with juices and smoothies and the rack of Odwalla snack bars were gone!

Briar Kop, General Manager, elaborated: "As a consumer cooperative we strive to offer our member-owners the highest quality products and we include a company's operational practices in our quality assessment. It is challenging to keep up with all of the company buyouts and practices. This is why the Co-op product buyers rely on information from many sources, including our members."

Columbia Gorge, a family-owned company based in Oregon, is now the Co-op's producer of choice for fresh bottled juices and smoothies. The Co-op is a value-driven consumer cooperative and recognizes the political implications of its product choices. The cooperative is committed to purchasing from environmentally friendly and socially responsible producers and Columbia Gorge reflects these values.

The Coke connection comes as a surprise to most consumers. Nowhere on its packaging, merchadising, or website does Odwalla identify Coca-Cola as its parent company. Odwalla and 300 other products reap profits for a corporation with such an egregious record of human rights abuses and environmental degration that in 2004 the Multinational Monitor named Coke one of the world's "Worst Corporations." 

The charges against the corporation include: 

• Contaminating local ecosystems worldwide through the dumping of toxic waste from its plants; pollution of agricultural land, rivers and groundwater.
  
  
• Exhausting community water reserves in India and other third-world countries by drilling deep into underground reservoirs, drying up local wells and leaving farmers unable to irrigate their crops.
  
  
• Using paramilitaries to crush union organizing at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia. Eight union leaders have been murdered and at least 100 others have been detained and beaten.
  
  
• Adopting union-busting tactics in Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia, Peru, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua and other countries.
  
  
• Poisoning workers through exposure to toxic waste and pesticides.
  
  
• Poisoning consumers by allowing unsafe levels of pesticide residues such as lindane, heptachlor (carcinogens), malathion, chlorpyrifos & DDT (neurotoxins) in their products.

Odwalla's slogan "soil to soul, people to planet" stands in stark contrast to its parent company's mounting offenses around the globe. Coke's 2006 revenues of $24 billion/$5 billion in profits came at a considerable cost to soil and soul, people and planet.

The Co-op's decision to boycott Coke products will also lead to eliminating a line of bottled waters manufactured by Glaceau, a company which Coca-Cola is in the process of acquiring for $4.2 billion.

On August 3, the PSGC committee members will set up in the Co-op Alcove to provide information about the Odwalla/Coke boycott. They will also have Teamsters petitions to sign and free samples of Columbia Gorge juices. 

 You can help by refusing to buy Odwalla, Coca-Cola, and other Coke brands, by joining the international Campaign to Stop Killer Coke and by signing the Teamsters Tell Coke to Clean up its Act petition.

Remember, when you shop at The Food Co-op, look for these great alternatives to Odwalla juices:

• Organic Columbia Gorge juices and smoothies. Committed to sustainable agriculture and  certified organic. Columbia Gorge pints hold more juice, and in many cases, their organic juices cost less than the non-organic Odwalla.

• Fresh juices and smoothies at the Deli’s juice bar. Fresh organic juices that are raw, unpasteurized, and made while you wait.