Shows Customers They're Getting The Real Thing
A year after a demonstration in Chicago against fraudulent labeling, Wisconsin ginseng growers and marketers say they're well on the way to fending off a cheaper foreign
product.
The solution, they say, is a "Wisconsin seal" program that assures customers the ginseng they buy at participating retailers is authentic Wisconsin ginseng.
"With the seal, you know you're getting a guaranteed commodity," said Paul Hsu, a grower in the Wausau area.
Wisconsin ginseng growers aided by state agriculture officials successfully sued a large California retailer for using the Wisconsin seal, according to Lt. Gov. Scott McCallum.
That retailer now says it wants to enter the Wisconsin seal program so it can legally certify the ginseng it sells is Wisconsin ginseng , according to Marathon County grower Larry Berens.
"I think we've made some great strides since last year," Berens said. "We've made some great progress . . . I think the retailers realize it's not a joke. We mean business. We will prosecute anybody and everybody who fraudulently uses our seal."
Ginseng is Wisconsin's top export crop a $100 million annual business.
An herbal root that has been used for 2,000 years in medicines, tonics and teas in Asian countries, ginseng is credited with everything from increasing general well-being and sexual energy to enhancing the effect of cancer-fighting drugs.
About 95% of the ginseng grown in the United States is grown in Wisconsin, and most of that crop is exported, McCallum said. But growers say there is an increasing market for
ginseng in the U.S., in Chinatown sections of major cities and in health food stores, and they want to protect their product in that market.
The stakes are high in the battle to differentiate the Asian- and American-grown varieties of ginseng . Farmers can sell American ginseng for $20 to $30 a pound, while the Asian
variety, known as China White, brings only $4 to $6 a pound wholesale, according to Ron Rambadt, executtive director of the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin, a marketing and research grower's group.
China White is regarded as a "hot" ginseng that may help cure illnesses, while American ginseng is regarded as a "cooler" ginseng that acts as an illness preventive or tonic.
"China White was being and is still being sold as American ginseng by unscrupulous dealers in Chinatowns throughout the U.S. and also abroad, and the reason for that is monetary,"
Rambadt said.
"There's a great profit motive to defraud the consumer," Berens said.
To draw attention to the problem, ginseng growers piled into two buses in August a year ago and traveled to Chicago's Chinatown to demonstrate against mixing or mislabeling China
White as American ginseng . Growers went into stores to educate retailers and received national media coverage of their efforts.
The same month, growers met in McCallum's office with officials from the Wisconsin attorney general's office, the agriculture department and the federal government, and reached an agreement to work together to investigate the mixing and counterfeiting of ginseng , McCallum said.
To stop the fraud, the Wisconsin seal program was started in this country in January, Rambadt said.
- BY : Ann Schottman Knol
- SOURCE : The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel1995.09.05
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