HISTORY OF EREWHON 1 HISTORY OF EREWHON - NATURAL FOODS PIONEER IN THE UNITED STATES (1966-2011): EXTENSIVELY ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCEBOOK Copyright © 2011 by Soyinfo Center HISTORY OF EREWHON 2 Copyright © 2011 by Soyinfo Center HISTORY OF EREWHON 3 HISTORY OF EREWHON - NATURAL FOODS PIONEER IN THE UNITED STATES (1966-2011): EXTENSIVELY ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCEBOOK Compiled by William Shurtleff & Akiko Aoyagi 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Soyinfo Center HISTORY OF EREWHON 4 Copyright (c) 2011 by William Shurtleff & Akiko Aoyagi All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information and retrieval systems - except for use in reviews, without written permission from the publisher. Published by: Soyinfo Center P.O. Box 234 Lafayette, CA 94549-0234 USA Phone: 925-283-2991 Fax: 925-283-9091 www.soyinfocenter.com [email protected] ISBN 978-1-928914-33-4 (History of Erewhon) Printed 2011 April 4; revised and enlarged 2011 April 30 Price: Available on the Web free of charge Search engine keywords: Erewhon Trading Co. Erewhon Trading Company Erewhon Inc. Erewhon, Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Soyinfo Center HISTORY OF EREWHON 5 Contents Page Dedication and Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................................. 6 Preface, by James Silver .............................................................................................................................................. 7 Introduction, by William Shurtleff ............................................................................................................................. 8 Chronology of Erewhon, by William Shurtleff ......................................................................................................... 11 About This Book ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 Abbreviations Used in This Book .............................................................................................................................. 14 How to Make the Best Use of This Digital Book - Search It! ................................................................................. 15 History of Erewhon - Natural Foods Pioneer in the U.S: 416 References in Chronological Order ................... 21 93 photographs and illustrations throughout the book Subject/Geographical Index by Record Numbers ................................................................................................. 295 Last page of Index .................................................................................................................................................... 315 Copyright © 2011 by Soyinfo Center HISTORY OF EREWHON 6 DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Japanese translation and maps: Akiko Aoyagi Shurtleff. This book is dedicated to Paul Hawken and Aveline Kushi Loma Linda University, Del E. Webb Memorial Library (Seventh-day Adventist): Janice Little, Trish Chapman. We would also like to thank our co-workers and friends at Part of the enjoyment of writing a book lies in meeting Soyinfo Center who, since 1984, have played a major role people from around the world who share a common interest, in collecting the documents, building the library, and and in learning from them what is often the knowledge or producing the SoyaScan database from which this book is skills acquired during a lifetime of devoted research or printed: practice. We wish to give deepest thanks... Irene Yen, Tony Jenkins, Sarah Chang, Laurie Wilmore, Alice Whealey, Simon Beaven, Elinor McCoy, Patricia Of the many libraries and librarians who have been of great McKelvey, Claire Wickens, Ron Perry, Walter Lin, Dana help to our research over the years, several stand out: Scott, Jeremy Longinotti, John Edelen, Alex Lerman, Lydia Lam, Gretchen Muller, Joyce Mao, Luna Oxenberg, Joelle University of California at Berkeley: John Creaser, Lois Bouchard, Justine Lam, Joey Shurtleff, Justin Hildebrandt, Farrell, Norma Kobzina, Ingrid Radkey. Michelle Chun, Olga Kochan, Loren Clive, Marina Li, Rowyn McDonald, Casey Brodsky, Hannah Woodman, Northern Regional Library Facility (NRLF), Richmond, Elizabeth Hawkins, Molly Howland, Jacqueline Tao. California: Martha Lucero, Jutta Wiemhoff, Scott Miller, Virginia Moon, Kay Loughman. Special thanks to Tom and Linda Wolfe of Berwyn Park, Maryland. Stanford University: Molly Molloy, who has been of special help on Slavic-language documents. For outstanding help on this Erewhon book (2nd edition): Carl Ferré, Susan and Roger Hillyard, Wallace Gorell, National Agricultural Library: Susan Chapman, Carol Robert Hanig, Norio Kushi, Bruce Macdonald, Tim Ditzler, John Forbes, Winnifred Gelenter, Henry Gilbert, Redmond, Mark Ripa, Evan Root, Lorenz K. Schaller, Kim Hicks, Patricia Krug, Veronica Lefebvre, Julie Mangin, Carolyn Heidenry Sharp, James Silver, Smithsonian Ellen Mann, Josephine McDowell, Wayne Olson, Mike Institution (Catherine Keen & Kay Peterson for many Thompson, Tanner Wray. fine old images), Bob Spencer, Bev Stiskin Sky, Patricia Smith, Kezia Snyder, Bill Tara, Jean Allison Young. Library of Congress: Ronald Jackson, Ronald Roache. Finally our deepest thanks to Tony Cooper of San Ramon, Lane Medical Library at Stanford University. California, who has kept our computers up and running since Sept. 1983. Without Tony, this series of books on the Contra Costa County Central Library and Lafayette Library: Web would not have been possible. Carole Barksdale, Kristen Wick, Barbara Furgason, Sherry Cartmill, Linda Barbero. This book, no doubt and alas, has its share of errors. These, of course, are solely the responsibility of William Shurtleff. Harvard University’s Five Botanical Libraries (especially Arnold Arboretum Library): Jill Gelmers Thomas. This bibliography and sourcebook was written with the hope that someone will write a detailed and well- French translation: Martine Liguori of Lafayette, California, documented history of this subject. for ongoing, generous, and outstanding help since the early 1980s. Copyright © 2011 by Soyinfo Center HISTORY OF EREWHON 7 PREFACE Where did the natural food business as we know it come Erewhon had a mission: to make the world a better place. from? It started with a company called Erewhon. Were there People would eat better, they’d be healthy. Being healthy, other companies selling natural foods before there was an they’d think better. Thinking better, they would then realize Erewhon? Of course. Plenty. So couldn’t they just as well war made no sense...theft made no sense... we’d all be on a be considered the founders of the natural food business? mission TOGETHER, as everyone ate better and got with the program. What a great adventure: to not only change the Those companies, some of whom – like Walnut Acres world, but to SAVE the world! (founded in 1946), or Arrowhead Mills (1960), or Chico- San (1962), or New Age Natural Foods (1965/66) – And so it followed that when Michio and Aveline Kushi preceded Erewhon by years or even decades, growing, began Erewhon it was to be an educational effort, in the producing, marketing natural foods and still there was no form of a business. That vision gave it a tremendous natural food industry in the sense that we know it today. strength in the beginning – when there really wasn’t any After Erewhon, the natural foods’ industry didn’t need money, so it wasn’t a business in the usual sense anyway. founding anymore. However - it didn’t need to make money, it was a school. Once Erewhon demonstrated that the ‘grocery’ model could In the end, when it was big and really was a business, what be brought to natural foods – high turn, low margins, had given Erewhon its ideological strength became its reasonable prices, easy access, good availability – they weakness. Ohsawa said: ‘Everything turns into its opposite made it possible for the growers and producers to expand at its extreme. Everything changes.” You need to change (and made a place for more of them) and the retailers to with it! exist, and they created a distribution model that enabled both. Even better – they showed you could make a business As a business entity, Erewhon failed. As a business idea, it selling only the products you cared about and believed in. was wildly successful. I’ve heard it said that Erewhon failed because the company compromised its vision. I’ve also Like a shoot of rice, the business of Erewhon grew from a heard it said that it failed because the company didn’t seed. In this case the seed was an idea – what George compromise its vision. And I’ve heard that the vision itself Ohsawa called “one grain, ten thousand grains.” The was the problem… Japanese idea of the obligation to return more than you’ve received when given something. Ohsawa also said “The Even so, imagine that Michio wrote “Erewhon” on a pebble bigger the front, the bigger the back.” And Ohsawa forty-odd years ago and dropped it into a pond. Today we probably would have said that the seed of Erewhon’s can see only the ripples, and no evidence of the pebble or destruction came from what he called the greatest sickness: even where it might have been dropped. Just the ripples, a kind of arrogance. and a little wave once in awhile. Think though… the really fascinating thing is that Erewhon was both the rock AND