Food brand update: Annie's sells out to General Mills while Barbara's gets its cereals Non-GMO Project Verified

Monday, September 15, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Tags: Annie's, General Mills, Barbara's

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(NaturalNews) General Mills, one of the most deceptive food companies in the world and a processed food giant that funds efforts to block GMO labeling transparency, is reportedly purchasing Annie's for $820 million. [1]

Annie's, based in Berkeley, California, is a well-known organic food brand that has long been favored by organic consumers. General Mills, on the other hand, works hand in hand with the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a GMO food industry front group that engages in criminal money laundering operations to make sure consumers remain ignorant about the toxic GMOs hidden in the foods they buy.

As with all such deals, the question becomes one of which company will influence the other the most. Will General Mills take over Annie's and exploit the brand while cheapening its ingredients and loading up Annie's products with hidden GMOs? Or will General Mills respect the Annie's brand and use it as a way to shift its business practices into more ethical foods that avoid GMOs and other toxic ingredients?

Most observers would say General Mills, like nearly all mega-corporations, will prioritize profits over ethics. After all, General Mills is the same company that launched "TOTAL Pomegranate Blueberry" cereal which contained neither pomegranates nor blueberries. This is a company that appears to have no motivation to be honest with consumers.

Nevertheless, we'll give General Mills the benefit of the doubt and see what happens with their acquisition of Annie's. Natural News and the entire organic consuming community will be keeping a close eye on Annie's from here forward, watching for any sort of sleight of hand that might be attempted.

Barbara's aims for 100% non-GMO cereals

On the good news side of things, I received a letter from Barbara's, makers of numerous natural cereal products, informing me of some exciting developments.

"We're proud of the fact that last year we earned Non-GMO Project Verification for a majority of our product portfolio; in fact, it was such a high priority for us that we were able to accomplish it in 18 months," Barbara's Directory of U.S. Marketing Katrina Yolen told Natural News.

"Today, 97 percent of Barbara's products are made with Non-GMO ingredients, and we're continuing our efforts to make that 100%. In fact, as we went through the rigorous process for verification, we learned that nearly half of our products already met the standards, and for the rest, we identified new suppliers that could offer ingredients free of GMOs."

I'm absolutely delighted to hear this from Barbara's, and it provides us all a good reason to support the Barbara's company by purchasing their products.

I was apparently wrong about Barbara's, having previously believed they were learning in the direction of using GMOs but claiming their cereals were "natural." It now seems clear that Barbara's is taking the track of transparency and working to win the loyalty of consumers by acting with ingredient integrity.

"In a survey of our most frequent purchasers, we learned that 90 percent wanted their cereals and snacks to be GMO-free," said Yolen in a company press release. [2]

Why I love to announce good news about honest food brands

This is precisely the kind of good news about food brands that I love to report. In an industry where food giants like General Mills are steeped in deception and even funding efforts to hinder consumers' free choice about buying non-GMO products, Barbara's is doing exactly the right thing: pursuing Non-GMO Project Verification so that consumers can make informed choices about which foods they wish to purchase vs. avoid.

Look for the Non-GMO Project Verified logo on Barbara's cereals, and congratulations to Barbara's for choosing the path of integrity and transparency.

Learn more about Barbara's non-GMO cereals (and other foods) at www.Barbaras.com

Two other ethical cereal companies I openly support, by the way, are Nature's Path and One Degree Organics.

By the way, if you're up for a good laugh, check out this "TOTAL Mind Games" comedy skit I recorded about General Mills and their deceptive TOTAL cereals:



Sources for this article include:
[1] http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/09/09/...

[2] http://barbaras.com/non-gmo/barbaras-achieve...