bug- and rot-resistant, all of which helped increase
the production of food throughout the decade.
From grocery stores to restaurant chains, companies
and individuals were often saving money in the long
run by using bioengineered food like the Flavr Savr
tomato, introduced in 1994 by California-based
company Calgene. Reaction to these bioengineer-
ing companies was mixed. While grocery stores em-
braced longer-lasting fruits, vegetables, and meats,
customers and other countries worried over the fail-
ure to label these genetically altered products for
fear of the effects of consuming genetically modified
foods. Despite this worry and a growing movement
that embraced organic foods, America was produc-
ing more genetically modified food than any other
nation by the end of the decade.
Restaurant Chains and Organic Food Culture Fast-
food restaurants continued to expand and have a
strong presence in the 1990’s, increasing their mar-
keting toward children, adding playgrounds onto
their restaurant property, and using movies likeTo y
Stor y(1995), as Burger King did, in their advertise-
ments. However, it was non-fast-food restaurant
chains like Applebee’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, Olive Gar-
den, Chili’s, and Denny’s that experienced the most
growth during the 1990’s. These chains offered an
alternative to the home-cooked meal, much as
frozen dinners did, while also taking a portion of
grocery store sales, encouraging family nights out at
the restaurant through aggressive advertising cam-
paigns. The industry was so lucrative that a growing
coterie of celebrity chefs like Emeril Lagasse and
Wolfgang Puck opened their own chains, which
were marketed as upscale restaurants.
The fact that chain restaurants were ubiquitous
by the end of the decade, cropping up along major
highways throughout the United States and Canada,
and that genetically modified food was equally ubiq-
uitous in grocery stores stirred concern over health
and feelings of skepticism concerning large grocery
stores and restaurant chains. This effectively opened
a market for individuals and companies to exploit
the antiglobalism and/or pro-natural sentiments
that many consumers felt was lacking in large restau-
rant chains. While this organic food movement was
often associated with local agriculture, and indeed
farmers’ markets increased their popularity during
the 1990’s, the largest share of the organic market
went to relatively small companies that grew into in-
ternational corporations. For instance, Whole Foods
Market, an organic and natural foods grocer founded
in 1980 in Austin, Texas, grew through acquisitions
during the 1990’s, eventually going international in- Starbucks, the now ubiquitous coffee shop
company that began in the natural foods atmo-
sphere of Seattle’s Pike Place Market and, notably,
continues to market itself in alliance with the or-
ganic food culture, became international in the
1990’s, with the total number of stores growing past
two thousand by the end of the decade.
Some preexisting, smaller food movements expe-
rienced sharp growth in membership and attention
during this period as well. The Slow Food move-
ment, founded in 1989 by Italian Carlo Petrini in op-
position to the global spread of fast food, experi-
enced global growth, eventually establishing an
office in New York just after the turn of the century.
Musician Neil Young’s organization, Farm Aid,
founded in the 1980’s and centered on an annual
concert to benefit local, family-owned farms, gained
popular attention during the 1990’s with televised
concerts.
Impact Food is unavoidably at the heart of much of
American culture. As the popularity of organic food
increased during the 1990’s, this often more expen-
sive product became a sign of middle-to-upper-class
membership. At the same time, fast food came to
symbolize American excess, and because of its low
nutritional value, growing problems of obesity were
often associated with this industry as well. While the
overall downward trend in sales at grocery stores re-
flected a population that increasingly preferred eat-
ing at the numerous and ubiquitous chain restau-
rants, genetically modified foods forced people not
only to reconsider the effects of consuming geneti-
cally altered products but also to consider the effects
this had on American agriculture as other nations
became wary of trading such food.
Further Reading
Counihan, Carole M.Food in the USA: A Reader. New
York: Routledge, 2002. Thirty essays reflecting on
the cultural impact of contemporary American
food habits and traditions.
Fromartz, Samuel.Organic Inc.: Natural Foods and
How They Grew. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2006. A
frank discussion on the alienating and damaging
policies of large companies that own the bulk of
the whole foods market.
340 Food trends The Nineties in America