ORGANIC GETS SAUCY

Organic pasta sauces are more than just plain vanilla.

s that cost considerably more and sometimes lacked the flavor of conventional products.

Double-digit growth of the $14 billion organic-food industry, fueled by food-safety issues and growing consumer awareness, has prompted many producers to grow more organic produce. This has given manufacturers such as Muir Glen, Enrico's, Timpone's and Millina's Finest access to a wider range of ingredients for their organic sauces -- from organic basil and mushrooms to organic cheeses. As a result, organic sauces are now often comparable to gourmet pasta sauces.

"There's more organic pasta and pasta sauce available than ever before," said Craig Weller, president of Texas Health Distributors, the distribution arm of Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market.

Private-label lines from Whole Foods; Wild Oats Community Markets, Boulder, Colo.; and Trader Joe Co., Pasadena, Calif., all include organic pasta sauces. Many also sell their own lines of organic pastas.

"People on the gourmet side of the fence are now recognizing the value organics can offer their product line," said Dale Kamibayashi, director of grocery purchasing for Wild Oats. "Now people can support organics, plus they can have all the great flavor they want in a pasta sauce."

Organic pasta sauces account for close to 40% of the pasta sauce stockkeeping units at Wild Oats, Kamibayashi said. The Wild Oats private-label line includes four organic items -- parmesan, sun-dried tomato, basil and shiitake mushroom. The company also carries 13 SKUs of organic pasta.

"Eventually, we would like all of our sauces to be 100% certified organic," Kamibayashi said.

Muir Glen, the market leader in the organic pasta sauce industry, has experienced growth of 25% a year, said Bonnie Tawse, spokeswoman for the Sacramento, Calif.-based company. Muir Glen, established in 1991, now manufactures more than 70 varieties of canned and jarred organic tomato products.

The company, a brand of Washington-based Small Planet Foods, recently introduced four new gourmet organic pasta sauces.

Sales for Organic Food Products' pasta sauces have grown by 10% a year, said Brad Barbeau, vice president of marketing for the Morgan Hill, Calif.-based company.

The company sells 12 varieties of Millina's Finest and seven varieties of Garden Valley organic pasta sauce. Flavors range from marinara with Zinfandel to fire-roasted red pepper. All ingredients are certified organic.

"The biggest growth we've seen in the retail industry is organic," said Victor Fusano, vice president of Gabriele Macaroni Co., City of Industry, Calif., which manufactures several private-label organic pasta brands. "There's a lot of business that can be had there."

While organic pasta and pasta sauces used to be sold mainly by natural-food stores, they can now be found alongside their non-organic counterparts in conventional supermarkets. Organic Food Products, for example, sells Millina's and Garden Valley in chains such as Raley's, Ralphs, Albertson's and Piggly Wiggly.

Genuardi's Family Markets, Norristown, Pa., carries both organic pasta and sauces. Although the organic sauces can be found in-aisle, they are in their own section on the shelf. Special signage alerts shoppers to organic items throughout the store. Although organic products still account for less than 10% of sales, they are a growth area for the company.

"We want the consumer to be able to find them without having to hunt through the whole department," said Emil Oles, category manager for Genuardi's. "We actually get compliments from our customers for taking such an interest in organic and natural products."

And with organic food still accounting for a relatively small percentage of the $500 billion food industry, sales of organic products have nowhere else to go but up, said Brad Barbeau, vice president of marketing for Organic Food Products.

"We'll continue to see it expand over the next four to five years," Barbeau said.

But being organic isn't always enough, stressed Lex Alexander, who holds the title of "Food Guy" at Whole Foods, the largest chain of natural-food supermarkets.

When the retailer began its search for a private-label pasta brand, employees sampled a number of domestically made organic pastas. None had the right taste or texture, Alexander said. Finally, the company found an Italian pasta that was high-quality, good-tasting and also happened to be organic.

"Just because a food is organic doesn't mean it's the best food choice, is worth a premium price, or that Whole Foods will choose to sell it in our stores," Alexander said. "Organic farming and food production are poorly served in the long run if organic foods are not held to the same stringent culinary standards we use in evaluating any food product that we offer our customers," he added.