One benefit of having every food product in existence owned by big corporations? Big corporations are super touchy about their reputations. So when the internet got all up in arms about Kashi’s “natural” cereals being less than fully organic/GMO-free/grown by fairies, the brand (owned by Kellogg Company) announced pretty quickly that it would change its ways.
This particular internet hullabaloo began when a grocer in Rhode Island realized that a product wasn’t as pristinely green as it seemed, as USA TODAY reports:
The controversy went viral a week ago after a Rhode Island grocer tacked a note to one of his store shelves, telling customers he wouldn’t sell the cereal because he found out the brand used genetically engineered, non-organic ingredients. Photos of the note began popping up on Facebook pages and food blogs as some consumers claimed Kellogg was misrepresenting its cereal.
It maybe should not have been surprising that cereal products that consist of sugary clumps of unidentified crunchy things were not entirely full of sweetness and light. But now that people are upset about it, Kashi is responding. Yesterday, the company announced that two years from now its most popular products (those “GOLEAN” cereals and the chewy granola bars) will have earned a seal of approval from the Non-GMO Project. By 2015, all new products will also be blessed by the Non-GMO Project and will have 70 percent organic ingredients.