Who Owns Organic? Between Profitability, Ethics, and Growth

At BIOFACH 2026, the Good Food Collective brought together a group of established organic companies, start-ups, retailers, and investors as part of its SustainableFutureLab initiative. In a fishbowl discussion, Michelle Calios (KoRo), Tillman Schulz and Philip Luthardt (Bohlsener Mühle), Lukas Nossol (dennree), and Philipp Stahr (Wholey) discussed how the organic sector, as a values-based movement, can thrive economically in the mainstream.

Today, organic is regulated, certified, and comparable. This creates market viability, but it also marks a shift: from a values-driven project to a minimum standard. What drove many of the early pioneers – cycles, regeneration, regional autonomy – goes far beyond that.

Attitude Under Economic Pressure

The notion that the new generation is less radical falls short. It is not their mindset that has changed, but rather the environment in which they must hold their ground. Anyone who consistently focuses on organic products today operates in a market characterized by price pressure, the dominance of food retailers, and consumers who – after years of multiple crises – are paying closer attention to price. “If you’ve consistently gone 100 percent organic, especially in recent years, that’s certainly a bold stance, because it’s definitely not always the most economical one,” says Philipp Stahr, co-founder and CEO of breakfast food manufacturer Wholey.

At the same time, the role of organic products has changed: For many new companies, it is no longer a matter of principle but a minimum requirement – a “basic standard,” as Philip Luthardt, sustainability manager at the organic grain products manufacturer Bohlsener Mühle, describes it. This is a success – organic products have established themselves in the market. But it also changes the depth of the discussion about the “why.” Michelle Calios, who helped build the food retailer KoRo from the ground up, knows this dilemma from personal experience: At KoRo, the focus has been on enjoyment from the very beginning – not the organic label. It’s a decision that has shaped the company’s economic success.

Long-Term Profit Instead of Low Profit

Food isn’t a high-margin market. Neither is organic food. “The problem with food – whether organic or not – is the low margins. With cosmetics, you can buy something for 4 euros and sell it for 80 euros – you just can’t do that with food,” Michelle Calios explains. Nevertheless, she advocates for bootstrapping as an early-stage strategy: “When you’re using your own capital, you really dig deep into every aspect of the business. That mindset changes as soon as you bring in outside capital.”

What matters, therefore, is not short-term returns, but the time horizon. “For me, it’s not ‘slow’ or ‘low,’ but ‘long-term profit business.’ It’s about where we’ll be in ten years. And that has to do with climate risk and climate resilience,” says Philip Luthardt. Organic supply chains are thus a form of risk management. Concepts such as true-cost accounting aim to make precisely this logic visible.

Capital as a Driver and Source of Tension for Biotech Companies

Few topics are as contentious as this one: What happens when capital flows into organic companies? Expectations, time horizons, and an understanding of the industry’s logic are crucial. “Capital isn’t a ‘purpose killer.’ But of course, the wrong kind of capital can cause problems,” emphasizes Philipp Stahr.

Tillman Schulz, who took over Bohlsener Mühle with MDS Holding in 2025, advocates reframing the term “investor”: “You could also say: I’m bringing in a partner on equal footing, a sparring partner – that immediately sounds much more positive.” His approach follows a clear guiding principle: “We didn’t join the company to sell it in two or three years, but to achieve sustainable growth.” The primary goal was to preserve over 270 jobs at the location – no restructuring agenda, no short-term exit.

The Big Need the Small: Division of Labor in the Ecosystem

Organic farming needs to scale up. But scaling up also means standardization, consolidation, and price pressure. That’s exactly why the industry remains dependent on small-scale structures: zero-waste stores, cooperatives, niche providers – places where new ideas take shape before they become market-ready. “What used to be an organic store is now a zero-waste store. In the retail sector, too, there’s pressure for innovation from the bottom up, which is absolutely crucial,” emphasizes Philip Luthardt. The logic isn’t one of hierarchy, but rather a division of labor: big players scale up, small ones innovate. What’s crucial is that both roles are interdependent.

Who owns organic products? That's the wrong question.

The bottom line is this: Organic doesn’t belong to anyone. And that is precisely where the tension lies. Organic is not a possession, but a system – an ecosystem that is constantly rebalancing itself: between those who built it, new market participants, and investors.

The discussion held as part of the SustainableFutureLab at BIOFACH 2026 highlighted these areas of tension. The real question, therefore, is not who owns organic, but under what conditions it can survive in the future. For with its arrival in the mainstream, organic has become part of a system shaped by economic constraints, pressure to scale, and differing capital and market logics.

In this context, scaling becomes a stress test for values: it tests how much change a system can withstand without losing its core principles – and how much openness it needs to continue growing.

The answer does not lie in labels or market shares, but rather where capital in various forms, business decisions, and agricultural reality converge. It is there that it will be decided whether organic farming functions as a shared system – or whether it will be torn apart by its own contradictions.