Sara Lee's Quasi-Organic Bread: A Half-Assed -- and Likely Doomed -- Bet on Green Shoppers

(MoneyWatch) 

Sara Lee (SLE) apparently thinks that shoppers want eco-friendly bread, and so it's just begun making its EarthGrains bread with "Eco-Grain" wheat, which is grown on family farms on smaller plots with less fertilizer. It probably shouldn't have bothered.

First, Eco-Grain is at best a quasi-organic product, as it's still made with pesticides and petroleum-based fertilizers (though less of the latter than usual). And even if that weren't the case, there's no reason to think consumers would go for the bread, since most people don't choose food based on whether it's good for the environment or not.

Instead, food research consistently shows that Americans buy food because they think it's a good value or that it's healthy for them and their family. That's what propelled the organic movement beyond the granola and Kochumba crowd and into the mainstream. Walmart (WMT) shoppers, for instance, want rGBH-free milk not because Monsanto's (MON) genetically-modified cow hormone is detrimental to cows, but because people get creeped out by the idea of milk having artificial hormones in it. In other words, when it comes to the food we eat, we're selfish.

But Sara Lee, the country's second largest bread maker, is charging ahead with a big environmental marketing program anyway. Its "Plot to Save the Earth, One Field at a Time" includes a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and absurd taglines like, "How your turkey sandwich can help preserve the Earth." It's designed to boost sales by making making people feel morally satisfied about eating whole wheat EarthGrains bread -- even though there's still that pesky pesticide and fertilizer problem, unlike real organic bread.

Unfortunately, Eco-Grain, which was developed by Horizon Milling, a joint venture between Cargill and CHS, Inc., may not help sell a lot of additional loaves of bread and will only further add to the mayhem of unregulated, confusing food claims.

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