Why hello! Chloe here coming to your inbox with a special report on the food ramifications of the invasion of Ukraine. The country is Europe’s breadbasket and a major exporter of crops—particularly organic ones, and particularly ones eaten by organic American chickens, as I report in my story out today. For instance, the fourth-largest U.S. chicken producer, Perdue Farms, confirmed to me that it imports some oilseeds and grains from Ukraine to feed its birds.
With problems such as drought and port delays, commodity prices were already rising before the war. Since Russia invaded, they’ve soared. Some experts fear that without the right feed ingredients from Ukraine, organic chickens, which are more costly to produce than other chickens, could become too expensive to raise in the U.S. Chicken is typically cheaper than beef or pork, which means that consumers, who already labor under the highest inflation in 40 years, may not be willing to pay the high prices that producers need to turn a profit.
The implication is that the economics could get out of whack, and that poultry growers could decide that organic is just not worth the cost. Instead, farmers seriously concerned about pricing could revert to raising more of their chickens conventionally, or raise chickens with more general label claims like “natural.”
“It could hurt the overall organic market size,” Alison Grantham, who owns her own consultancy Grow Well, told me. “People are dealing with so much inflation already. It’s a choice, whether you buy organic or not-organic chicken. We might see some shrink in organic poultry. I don’t know how much the consumer can bear.”
That would be a real shame. Organic farming eliminates fertilizer, which means yields might be lower but the soil won’t get polluted from chemicals like nitrogen, and there’s less runoff hitting rivers and waterways. As the United Nations’ latest climate report released this week shows, corporations like meat suppliers which command a large share of agricultural resources need to be held accountable. Catastrophic global temperature rise has already hit many parts of the world, and extreme weather will continue to disrupt global food supply chains.
I’ll keep tracking these consequences.
I am a journalist, but I am also a human, one whose Jewish ancestry originates in Kyiv, Ukraine. It’s been a tough few days, full of horror, courage and hope.
Wishing you a restful weekend.
— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer
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What’s Fresh
War In Europe’s Breadbasket Reverberates In An Unlikely Place. War in Ukraine, Europe’s breadbasket, may reverberate to an unlikely place: the American organic chicken refrigeration case, by yours truly.
Pilgrim’s Pride Ex-CEOs Face Felony Trial Over Alleged Price-Fixing In Chicken. A retrial in a major case of 10 poultry executives accused of colluding over prices started at the end of February, after the Department of Justice spent seven weeks arguing the same case in court in late 2021, by yours truly.
Why Grocery Retailers May Eliminate Cashiers. In-person check-out is a pillar of retail operations. Yet in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, cashier-less technology is gaining ground among grocery retailers, writes Errol Schweizer.
10 States Have Banned Russian Vodka—A Symbolic Gesture With Little Economic Punch. States from Oregon to Maine have shown their condemnation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by pulling Russian vodka from shelves—however, Russian-made vodka accounts for just 1.3% of U.S. vodka imports, making the gesture mostly symbolic, reports Zachary Snowdon Smith.
What Consumers Should Ask About Precision Fermentation. Foods produced by genetically modified microorganisms are entering the grocery marketplace. As Errol Schweizer asks, what do consumers need to know about this technology?
Meet The Immigrant Woman Who Launched Franzia, The World’s Largest-Volume Wine Brand. Teresa Franzia, who immigrated from Italy to California in the 1900’s, is credited with starting two of the largest wineries in the world, by master of wine Liz Thach.
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Chloe Sorvino
Irarely follow a recipe, but I couldn’t resist trying out this Nigella Lawson citrusy orzo one-pot stunner! Unlike a lot of other stews I make in the winter time that are heavy on tomato, this one felt bright.
Chloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her nearly eight years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha, and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in Northern France. Her book on the fight for the future of meat is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books in September 2022.
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