The recent sale of Applegate Farms to the giant food conglomerate Hormel came as a surprise to many in the food world who saw Applegate as an important alternative to corporate-run meat production.

But the sale wasn’t unique; in fact, it was part of a much larger pattern. From Kashi to Stonyfield, and Celestial Seasonings to Honest Tea, big food companies, hoping to capitalize on increasing consumer demand for organic and “natural” foods, have been snapping up small operations for years.

Multinational companies like General Mills and Pepsico are now selling foods like Annie’s Homegrown and Naked Juice and burnishing their own image by doing so. Others are quietly making changes to the products once they buy the brand, such as when Dean Foods purchased WhiteWave Foods and stopped using organic soybeans in its Silk products, or when General Mills tripled the amount of sugar used in some of its Cascadian Farms cereals.

Whether or not these big companies change the products themselves, they’re also gaining more power over the market, making it harder for more truly socially conscious food startups to compete.

All of this prompts the question: Is selling out inevitable for sustainable food companies?

Equal Exchange, the Fair Trade, worker-owned coffee producer, says it’s not. The company issued a statement recently to that effect, citing the Applegate Farms sale. Equal Exchange believes that “more mission-driven companies like ourselves and so many small food enterprises would stay independent, and on mission, if they only knew a way to raise capital on their own terms—not those of Wall Street or private equity firms. Then they wouldn’t feel as pressured to turn over the keys of their baby to Hormel, Coke, or General Mills.”

According to Applegate spokeswoman Gina Asoudegan, “Applegate’s agreement with Hormel was not about raising capital. Given the health issues of our founder and CEO, there were other considerations like succession and leadership of the company that had nothing to do with financing.” That said, she added that, “Equal Exchange provides a great alternative for smaller, mission-driven companies to get the financial backing they need to keep going.”

Applegate aside, Daniel Fireside, Equal Exchange’s capital coordinator, told Civil Eats, “A lot of these companies operate under the mistaken belief that the only way to grow is to sell out to a big, soulless multinational.” If more small companies followed Equal Exchange’s financing practices, fewer would sell out, he added. The key difference? The company, like a growing list of others, doesn’t hand power off to outside investors.