The leaders of the so-called good food sector — including Chipotle, Whole Foods and Applegate — are winning big in the marketplace, but they’re losing to their Big Food cousins in Washington.

There is virtually no “good food” industry lobbying strategy in place, as the vanguards of healthier eating have largely ignored Capitol Hill, leaving the traditional food and beverage powerhouses — which spent more than $36 million last year on lobbying — to push their agenda.


Just last week, the House approved a bill to block any state-level mandatory genetically-modified-organism labeling 275-150, a mostly party-line vote that picked up 45 Democrats. Meanwhile, there’s a growing list of good-food industry leaders who are worried that a lack of lobbying from health-conscious outlets could lead to more losses on labeling as well as watered-down federal dietary recommendations and school lunch requirements.

Yet neither Whole Foods; nor Chipotle and Applegate, companies that serve up antibiotic-free meats; nor Hain Celestial Group, which owns Arrowhead Mills, Spectrum and Celestial Seasonings, have a single registered lobbyist between them, according to a POLITICO review of disclosure records. Their involvement on Capitol Hill, on issues from the farm bill to nutrition labeling, has ranged from limited to nonexistent.

Instead of financing lobbyists, Applegate recently footed the bill for a documentary advocating for limiting antibiotics in agriculture. It hosted screenings across North America and then directed viewers to contact members of Congress. The company also hosted a special screening of the film, which is now on Netflix, for congressional staff last summer.

Applegate, valued at nearly $800 million, has never considered hiring a lobbyist, said Gina Asoudegan, Applegate’s director of mission.

“Politicians react to voter sentiment,” said Asoudegan, who views much of the company’s marketing as consumer education. “Our job is to increase sentiment around certain issues.”

Organic foods make up just under 5 percent of the U.S. food market. But the $35 billion sector is becoming more mainstream every year, having enjoyed double-digit growth for two decades while overall food sales have grown at just 3 percent year over year. Natural foods — an amorphous sector with no definition — has grown even faster, putting pressure on companies like Mars, General Mills and Nestle to drop artificial dyes and additives to appeal to consumers seeking “cleaner” fare.

The limited-lobbying strategy is reminiscent of other burgeoning industries, particularly technology: Silicon Valley long resisted the D.C. game, only to learn it would need legions of lobbyists to tackle policy roadblocks and deflect new government scrutiny.

The approach is also the antithesis of the standard food-industry playbook: Under intense pressure on issues ranging from obesity to GMO labeling, America’s longstanding food and beverage giants need Washington more than ever — and they are stepping it up, spending record sums. Since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the food and beverage sectors have spent about twice as much on federal lobbying, on average, compared to the Bush and Clinton years, according to a review of the Center for Public Integrity spending database. And those figures do not account for tens of millions spent at the state and local levels to fight soda taxes and mandatory GMO-labeling ballot initiatives.

A few leaders in the healthier food space have been working behind the scenes to urge more food companies to get involved in policy. They include Gary Hirshberg, founder and chairman of Stonyfield, a leading organic yogurt and dairy company; Sam Kass, the former de facto food policy czar at the White House; celebrity chef and “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio; and Claire Benjamin, a former Hill staffer who now runs the 501(c)(4) Food Policy Action.

“The place where we’re doing really well is the cultural side,” Kass said, pointing to huge shifts in consumer preference in the market. “But we’re going to continue to hit our heads against the ceiling until more people get politically engaged.”

Wins and losses

The insurgent industry has had some policy wins, despite its hands-off take on D.C. It made significant strides in the last farm bill with a very limited lobbying footprint. The bill included more support for organic farmers, research and crop insurance. And the Obama administration, with a big push from first lady Michelle Obama, has been friendly to the good food trend, promoting local farms and more fruit and vegetable consumption and recently pledging to buy hormone- and antibiotic-free meats for White House functions.

Hirshberg, a preeminent corporate figure in organics, is particularly evangelical about his belief that companies need to get involved politically. He watched as controversial genetically modified crops sailed through the Agriculture Department’s regulatory process “like a hot knife through butter” and recalled thinking that nonprofits weren’t doing enough to fight back and that business needed to come to the table.

He thinks the fact that many organic companies don’t have — or want — more sway in Washington can be partly explained by looking at the roots of the movement. The first wave of companies to be successful in the space were led by “brilliant, impressive” entrepreneurs, but they also tended to be iconoclastic, solo players. As their companies grew and ultimately got bought up, “many people sort of checked out,” he said.

“There’s a disconnect between the marketplace and D.C. … In the marketplace, we’re everything,” said Hirshberg. “A lot of folks are still very uncomfortable with the fact that you have pay to play — you have to be a force.”

Kass, who left the White House in December, is also pushing industry leaders to get in the game and build political support for priorities including school lunch reform, stricter water and soil protections and more research dollars for fruits and vegetables.

“You have to show up. Showing up works,” said Kass, who calls the lack of political engagement a “massive weakness” of the food movement. “You can’t complain that corporations show up and have an impact and then not show up.”

Some of the newer companies say they do, when it counts.

Stephen McDonnell, the Applegate meat company’s founder and CEO, has met with a handful of lawmakers on Capitol Hill in recent years during fly-ins with Chipotle CEO Steve Ells and executives from Panera. The visits were organized by the Natural Resources Defense Fund, which also advocates for limiting antibiotics in meat production.

Legislation to ban certain uses of medically important drugs on farms has not advanced, but consumer pressure has driven the likes of McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and Wal-Mart to crack down on their suppliers’ use of the drugs.

Chipotle, one of the country’s largest buyers of antibiotic-free meats, mostly avoids the policy fray. The burrito company won attention this year for being the first national restaurant chain to go GMO-free — which sparked considerable backlash in the press for being anti-science — but the company is not lobbying for mandatory labeling. The chain is also not donating toward those efforts, though Chipotle did endorse a state ballot initiative in Colorado.

“We have been driving significant change in the food system over the last 15 years or so, and will continue to do that,” spokesman Chris Arnold said. “We have been largely apolitical and have always believed that the private sector is a more effective change agent than government.”

The absence isn’t because these companies are small. Chipotle, for example, is valued at $20 billion — nearly four times Domino’s Pizza. Whole Foods is not far behind at $14 billion. Hain Celestial is nearing $7 billion.

The gap between the growth in the market and who’s playing ball in D.C. could be a challenge for the greater food movement and segments of the industry that could benefit from certain federal policy reforms, such as banning certain antibiotics from meat production, more organic research and subsidies and the mandatory disclosure of the use of genetically modified ingredients. But there are also upsides to being MIA: The companies largely set their own ground rules and avoid attracting more scrutiny from Congress and regulators.

A grocery store employee wipes down a soup bar with a display informing customers of organic, GMO-free oils in Boulder, Colo. | AP Photo

Six degrees of separation

Some in the good food space are engaged on the Hill indirectly via trade association memberships. WhiteWave Foods, a nearly $9 billion company with brands ranging from Earthbound Farms to Silk and Horizon Organic, is represented on the board of the Organic Trade Association, a group that includes farmers, manufacturers and retailers and has grown in influence, but remains relatively small. The association spent a little more than $189,000 on lobbying in 2014. WhiteWave, which spent $160,000 the same year, deferred questions about lobbying and policy priorities to the trade association. Hain Celestial, also a member of OTA, declined to comment. Whole Foods, another member, did not respond to requests for comment.

Laura Batcha, the trade association’s CEO, said the organic sector has grown its political power from its market success. “Our recent surveys show that regardless of what congressional district they are in, the vast majority of American consumers are buying organic.”

Some natural food companies, including Bob’s Red Mill and Strictly Gluten Free, an online retailer, are active in the Natural Products Association, a group mostly composed of supplement companies, which dropped $600,000 on lobbying last year.

In June, Hampton Creek, a Bay Area startup that makes plant-based mayo and cookies, bucked the avoid-D.C. trend by hiring a lobbying firm even though the company, which has not gone public, remains relatively small. The company counts Tom Steyer and Li Ka-shing as direct investors. Bill Gates has an investment in Hampton Creek through Khosla Ventures, a venture capital firm.

“Systemic change doesn’t happen if you’re just focused on putting out a really good product,” said Josh Tetrick, CEO of Hampton Creek, explaining that he believes the food system is so “screwed up” in large part because of decades of bad federal farm policy. Tetrick came to Washington recently to meet with several top lawmakers with Heather Podesta, a prominent lobbyist.

A small handful of other new wave companies have been dipping their toes into the D.C. game, too. Chobani, the yogurt powerhouse known for simple ingredients, spent $190,000 in 2014. The company also keeps Chobani-branded refrigerators in congressional offices stocked with yogurt. Chobani just landed a huge contract to put its products in school cafeterias nationwide. Roll Global, which owns POM Wonderful and Fiji Water, spent $80,000, records show.

By comparison: Coca-Cola spent $9.3 million in the same period. PepsiCo and the National Restaurant Association were the next biggest spenders, shelling out $3.5 million and $2.6 million, respectively, last year. Mars Inc., Hershey Co. and Darden are not far behind: Each spent more than $1 million.

Many of the largest food and beverage companies spending big on influence also now own the hottest natural and organic brands — Naked is now owned by PepsiCo, Odwalla and Honest Tea by Coca-Cola — but some acquisitions still advocate on policy issues even when they are at odds with their parent companies.

Applegate was recently bought by Hormel, a large meat company famous for Spam, but the company plans to continue its advocacy on antibiotics as an independent subsidiary. Ben & Jerry’s is one of the loudest supporters of mandatory GMO labeling, although its stance is at odds with its parent company, Unilever. The Vermont company’s top executives have been on Capitol Hill to advocate on that issue — even serving up ice cream to congressional staff — but the company doesn’t have a registered lobbyist, either.

Dan Fabricant, CEO of the Natural Products Association and a former Food and Drug Administration official, said if organic and natural food companies think they can avoid engaging inside the Beltway because consumers love the sector, “that’s a really scary way of thinking about how D.C. works,” he said.

“On some level, there’s no peacetime here,” he adds. “Washington’s always at war.”

Clarification: Bill Gates has an investment in Hampton Creek through Khosla Ventures, a venture capital firm, but is not a direct backer of the company.