Anyone can contribute to the sustainability movement, and the food industry is taking a leadership role. Retailers in particular are implementing energy-saving programs, using better building materials and even working to make their distribution systems more efficient.

Retailers seem to be enjoying the biggest boost from their green efforts, primarily because they’re more exposed to consumers. It makes sense that a store with skylights and solar panels is going to get more notice than, say… a beer distributor making deliveries in vehicles powered by compressed natural gas.

Huh?

We didn’t know it either, but there is such a operator! Manhattan Beer Distributors announced this week that 10% of its fleet of 300 delivery trucks is now completely retrofitted to operate on compressed natural gas, otherwise known as CNG.

“Combined emissions reduction from Manhattan Beer’s 30 CNG delivery trucks is estimated, over 10 years of operation, to lower vehicle pollution in New York by 227 tons, eliminate the need for 700 oil changes, displace an estimated 601,423 gallons of diesel fuel and decreased engine noise by 90%,” said Mike McCarthy, the distributor’s senior vice president of operations.

Actually, Manhattan Beer was at it long before green living became chic. The company received its first round of emissions funding in 2002, when 15 trucks were retrofitted, and a CNG refueling station was built in the South Bronx. The non-gasoline trucks enjoy the same performance and fuel economy as their diesel counterparts, according to McCarthy.

Of course, the financial incentive was a big factor in switching over, too. Manhattan Brewing received grants from the state of New York totaling more than $1 million. But the follow-though still required a dedication to the cause. The trucks needed to be taken out of service while they were retrofitted, and facilities had to be planned, bid out and built. It’s not just about taking the money.

And look what happens: Peak Organic, a Maine-based brewer of craft beers, played up the CNG angle this week in announcing their new distribution agreement covering the New York metro area with Manhattan Beer.

See the benefits here? This is a marketer’s dream! An organic products company becomes affiliated with an environmentally progressive distributor, who brings a high-margin item to retailers, with a consumer message that resonates. We’ll drink to that.

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, there was a lot of excited talk in the halls at Topco Associates, the Skokie, Ill.-based wholesale distributor. Strangers who were present would have overheard numerous references to a mysterious “On-key.” Unseen and unkown, it seemed that On-key’s arrival was imminent.

The mystery was solved on Nov. 28, when Topco officials unveiled the Overall Nutritional Quality Index. So, “ONQI” was not a person but a comprehensive system of evaluating food products based on nutrition content. This new scoring system had been under development for more than two years by independent researchers, before Topco officials heard about it and brought it in-house as a consumer resource.

“We didn’t have much to offer on the science side, but thought this was a much better mousetrap, and that we could be instrumental in making it happen and turning it into something real,” said Steve Lauer, Topco’s president and CEO.

The real news behind the announcement, and the one I think will be talked about for some time to come, is not what ONQI is, but what it represents: A shift among retailers to a truer, more authentic leadership role. I think this program — as well as Hannaford Bros.’ Guiding Stars program — marks a key turning point in this ongoing evolution of the retailer into a full-time customer advocate. No more walking the fine line between shopper needs and manufacturer requirements. Consumer-centric initiatives like Guiding Stars and ONQI have the potential to change the way food is sold.

Sound like a stretch? Not if you ask Jeff Posner, Topco’s executive vice president.

“The manufacturers endorse the science, they understand it and they also see the positive business implications that arise from doing the right thing in the health area,” he told us last week.

“ONQI will strongly encourage manufacturers to make more nutritious products,” is how Lauer put it, adding such programs have the power to control the tainted marketing claims made by some national manufacturers. “It will also take out some of the hype that’s all too often misleading.”

When’s the last time you heard senior supermarket executives talk like that?

The fact that Hannaford announced it would begin licensing its Guiding Stars program a day after the Topco announcement indicates there will be plenty of opportunities for supermarkets to use these turn-key systems in their own stores, and this is a good thing. As Lauer put it: “Hopefully, the sum total of all of these efforts will be improved health.”

We agree. Like food safety and charity, public health should not be a competitive element in any business. Every retailer should have the opportunity to offer their customers this type of service.

Highly subsidized and plentiful in supply, high fructose corn syrup has been the sweetener of choice among American food manufacturers since the early 1970s. Since then, its presence has become almost universal. HFCS is found in everything from carbonated soft drinks to less obvious products like commercial sliced bread.

Core health and wellness consumers have long placed corn syrup on their Ten Most Wanted List of ingredients to ban. Most protests fell on deaf ears, until now. Amid alarming increases in the rates of obesity, diabetes and diet-related health problems, natural food retailers are taking a leadership role on the issue.

Most recently, PCC Natural Markets, which operates eight natural and organic stores in the Seattle area, announced the elimination of high fructose corn syrup from all of the products on its shelves.

“HFCS is a highly processed sweetener with no nutritive value and has been linked to many potential damaging effects on health. Healthier alternatives exist,” PCC spokeswoman Diana Crane told us.

The action wasn’t as arduous an undertaking as it sounds, since the chain’s consumers already exhibited more healthful shopping habits, and were aware of the issue. Indeed, the ultra-cheap sweetener had already been shut out of all but 1% of the retailer’s offerings, according to Crane.

PCC isn’t even the first retailer to take this step. Back in 2004, Asheville, North Carolina-based Earth Fare phased HFCS out of its nine natural food stores.

To be fair, corn syrup is not the only cause of the country’s health problems. Neither is it likely the biggest one. But its near ubiquitous presence in many foods has more consumers questioning whether all this sweetness, in every food item, is necessary.

It’s safe to say that such bans won’t start cropping up in mainstream markets anytime soon. Like sodium, which we covered in a blog entry last week, HFCS is just too enmeshed in our food system for conventional retailers to cut. And remember, not every consumer dislikes the sweetener.

At the same time, rumblings like this in the health and wellness industry are hard to ignore. Could a label reading “Made without HFCS” be the next “Free of Hormones and Antibiotics”?

We wonder.