Are U.S.-Grown Golden Gourmet Mushrooms Organic?

A mushroom company in California might have misled customers by labeling non-organic products as "organic," according to a complaint filed today by the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a national whistleblower organization.

In its complaint, GAP is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program (NOP) to launch an investigation into possible violations of organic standards by Golden Gourmet Mushrooms Inc. of San Diego County. In addition to the alleged mislabeling of organic products, the GAP complaint alleges Golden Gourmet might have identified fresh mushrooms imported from Japan as California-grown. GAP is also asking the NOP to review the qualifications of the certifying agent that OK's Golden Gourmet's organic status.

"Every violation of the standards reduces public confidence in the organic label," said Jacqueline Ostfeld, GAP's food and drug safety officer. "It is critical that the National Organic Program thoroughly investigate complaints and weed out any bad actors now while the program is still young."

Placed into effect in October 2002, the National Organic Program requires that foods labeled as organic must come from farms or operations that have been certified by a state or other agency accredited by the USDA.

GAP says anonymous sources report that Golden Gourmet, which claims to sell fresh California-grown mushrooms, has imported all its fresh mushrooms from the Hokuto Corporation in Japan for the past two years. It adds that Golden Gourmet might have also blended organic-certified mushrooms with non-organic mushrooms from Japan to produce its mushroom powder products.

Golden Gourmet announced its alliance with Hokuto this past January. The company said the partnership made it the "largest specialty mushroom production facility outside of Asia."

The GAP complaint also alleges that upper management at Golden Gourmet changed Hokuto's organic certification documents to make them appear they were Golden Gourmet's certification.

"The fraud in this case is so willful and flagrant, it would be truly shocking if (Golden Gourmet) were permitted to continue selling products under an organic label," said Ostfeld.

GAP has published a list of supporting documents for its complaint on the front page of its Website (http://whistleblower.org/template/index.cfm). Those documents include copies of both Golden Gourmet's and Hokuto's organic certification documents, the allegedly doctored organic system plan documents, Golden Gourmet invoices to anonymous customers and emails between Golden Gourmet and Quality Assurance International, its organic certifying agency.

Government Accountability Project, "GAP Files Complaint Against Mushroom Company for Organic Standards Violations." URL: (http://whistleblower.org/content/press_detail.cfm?press_id=1204)