To a large extent, this is a guy talking his book, as the financial types say. In the article,Fast Company observes that Nestlé "has made acquisitions of several premium brands that organic-loving people tend to buy: San Pellegrino water, PowerBar energy bars, and Skinny Cow ice cream." However, none of those brands are organic. And a quick glance at the organic industry structure shows us that Nestlé is barely involved. They don't own a significant stake in a single major organic brand, despite that fact that their closest candy competitors have all done so (Hershey owns Dagoba and Cadbury owns Green and Black's).

It's discouraging, if not surprising, to see the old "organic can't feed the world" canard gracing the pages of another well-intentioned media outlet. But Brabeck-Letmathe isn't content to rehash that tired trope. To heighten his argument, Brabeck-Letmathe also drags out the ancient claim that organic foods cause "30 to 40 deaths per year" in consumers due to improper use of manure in organic production. Over on Civil Eats, Anna Lappé has done a thorough job of documenting the long history of this false claim -- going back to a retracted 20/20 news report from a decade ago. She also cleverly points to the fact that Brabeck-Letmathe has been giving essentially this same interview for years.

It's clear that Brabeck-Letmathe has multiple reasons for attacking organics. For one, his prediction about a plateau in the rise of organic sales rings hollow if you've been paying attention; from 2009 to 2010 (arguably the depths of the current recession) organics went up 7.7 percent. But whole, organic, and unprocessed foods don't only represent a direct threat to Nestlé's sales, they threaten its new business lines.