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Whole Foods To Push Organics As Scholars Debate Their Benefits

Whole Foods Market is expanding its organic food offerings and will launch a campaign next year that's focused on healthy eating, Brian Gaar reports. CEO John Mackey disclosed the plans as he reported a 2% increase in sales in its fiscal third quarter, although sales at stores open at least a year slipped by 2.5%.

"We believe continuing to raise the bar in areas that matter to our customers will reinforce our leadership position in natural and organic foods, resulting in greater customer loyalty for many years to come," Mackey said.

Brand Republic's Jacquie Bowser reports that some consumers in Great Britain are more wary of organic food following the release of a report commissioned by the Food Standards Agency that found that there was no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food. The report, "Nutritional Quality of Organic Foods: A Systematic Review," was written by a team led by Alan Dangour at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and will be published next month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The Organic Center in the U.S. has posted a response to the study. It convened a team of scientists that it says "carried out a similar, but more rigorous" review of the same literature and came to very different conclusions. Its methodology and findings are spelled out here.

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