Out with the Old Front Groups & In with the New

Two former food industry websites -- Best Food Nation and the Grow America Project -- are being merged and re-birthed as a new front group, the Center for Food Integrity (CFI). CFI's web domain was registered earlier this month by Charlie Arnot, who runs a small Missouri-based PR firm, CMA Consulting. CFI, which lists Monsanto as one of its supporters, states that it aims "to build consumer trust and confidence in the contemporary U.S. food system." Joseph Mendelson, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, a consumer group, told Food NavigatorUSA.com that CFI is simply "a PR entity to try and battle regulations designed to create a safer food supply ... This is a way for it to promote its agenda under a green wash label." Mendelson also believes that the CFI's name was "chosen to try to distract attention from groups like ours and to confuse consumers." (Note: Mendelson is on the Center for Media and Democracy's Board of Directors.)