Let’s see…. can you name any state agencies and what they’re famous for? Florida’s office of Secretary of State comes to mind, but this is a food industry blog, so we’ll skip over the 2000 U.S. presidential election and move right onto something more appropriate.

How about the N.J. Department of Agriculture? That’s more on-point. It was 1984 when then-Secretary Art Brown unveiled the “Jersey Fresh” campaign. Sure, it got a lot of laughs at first. New Jersey? Everyone focuses on the northern reaches of the state, and forgets that New Jersey farms generate about $924 million per year and employ about 562,000 people — that’s about 12% of the state’s jobs. Currently there are about 10,000 farms working 790,000 acres, or 17% percent of the state’s land.

The irrepressible Brown (his personal advocacy of the budding program was key to its eventual success) kicked off what’s become a credible source of promotional assistance for retailers. Numerous states copied N.J.’s program with their own slogans and logos. Through these departments of agriculture, supermarket chains are today able to connect with farmers, take advantage of promotional materials and plan events. Say what you want about the Garden State, but biting into an in-season, Jersey-grown tomato still sends shivers down your back (that’s a Ramapo, a local favorite, pictured above. courtesy of Rutgers University).

This week, farmers are going to gather in the state capital to protest the plan to get rid of the Department of Agriculture. It’s a budget move expected to save $4 million. Instead, the areas the agency is responsible for — including soil conservation, food safety and commodity promotions — will be transferred to others that oversee health and environmental protection.

Two other states do not have Departments of Agriculture: Rhode Island and Alaska. New Jersey would become the third. Officials point out that eliminating the department does not mean they’re taking away support for the state’s agricultural heritage and current needs.

But it sure seems like it. I don’t think there’s one retailer operating in the state who doesn’t participate to some degree in the annual Jersey Fresh campaign. Let’s hope that, no matter what the outcome, supermarkets keep the program popular and profitable.

My colleague, Jeff Wells, is our go-to guy for coverage of the locavore market, but something crossed my desk that got me thinking. Maybe it’s spring, and everyone is getting excited about the coming season, but local food news is really taking the headlines this week.

The National Cooperative Grocers Association is putting the final touches on its first-ever “Eat Local Challenge” which calls on consumers to eat 80% of their diets (or four out of every 5 meals) from locally grown foods. The promotion runs during the height of the growing season, from mid-June to mid-September.

More specifically, the challenge is actually divided up into three periods, based on peak times. Since we’re in the Northeast, our challenge time will be Aug. 15 to Sept. 15. California, the Southwest and South go first, with their season peaking from June 15 to July 15. It’s OK. I don’t mind waiting for corn and tomatoes.

Robynn Shrader, the NCGA’s chief executive, says the idea goes beyond simple taste, to the heart of the “Go Local” movement that’s captured the imagination of so many shoppers.

“It’s good for economy, because money from each transaction stays in the region. It connects community members to the people who grow or produce our food, while helping to support endangered family farms,” says Shrader. “It also helps protect the environment because food doesn’t travel as far, reducing carbon dioxide emissions.”

Now, I know there are studies out there questioning the effectiveness of local buying, research examining the true benefit of food miles, and things of that nature. I’ll just say this. Last June I went cherry picking at an orchard in upstate New York, not far from my hometown. We had a blast running around the sunny orchard with these huge baskets, tasting the different varieties, listening to the farmer describe what a great year it was as he exhorted us to sample all we wanted. “Better you folks than the birds” was my memory of his exact words.

The science and economics and realities of “local” faded fast before the sheer joy of being right at the source, picking our own. We resolved then and there to go apple picking in the fall (just as fun, but apples are a lot heavier to lug around than cherries, and eventually I was forced to hail a tractor).

So, retailers, please have some local produce available this year. Bring the farmers in, let them talk and invite the kids. Not everyone has the luxury or the ability to get away to the fields and orchards. But you have the power to bring it all to them.

In our November SN Whole Health cover story, we reported on the growing demand for locally sourced products, and supermarkets’ efforts to meet that demand. Fast-forward a couple months, and the trend is as hot as ever. According to a recent study from The Hartman Group, 73% of consumers are buying products they see as locally made or produced.

Retailers like Price Chopper get the picture. This week the Schenectady, N.Y.-based chain announced it would start offering more local products throughout the store. Ukrop’s also gets it. Each year the Richmond, Va.-based chain partners with local groups like Appalachian Sustainable Development to provide fresh regional produce.

Supermarkets aren’t the only ones taking advantage. Chipotle is now serving pork from Polyface Farm (made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma) at its Charlottesville, Va. location. And food service operators like Sodexo and Bon Appetite are ramping up their local sourcing efforts at hospitals, college campuses and other places.

So how much bigger can this thing get? Well, before looking to the next horizon, retailers should first focus on marketing and sourcing the local offerings they already have.

Sourcing local products efficiently requires some creative thinking, since it runs counterintuitive to the centralized model that most supermarket supply chains adhere to. Smart companies will go out of their way to streamline the process and help give area farmers a hand.

There’s also the question of how to position these items once they reach the store. Supermarkets are currently the most shopped channel for the category, according to the Hartman study, claiming 62% of shoppers who buy local goods. That number could be higher, however, especially if more retailers take time to connect their customers with the people and stories behind the local products they supply.

“There’s an emotional connection that consumers make with local,” said Laurie Demeritt, president of the The Hartman Group. “They really want to connect with that narrative behind the product.”

An outdoor event, such as a farmer’s market or a meet-and-greet, is a perfect way to accomplish this. With warm weather just around the corner, now’s the time to get cracking.

A number of economic reports coming out this past week reflect the grim mood shared by U.S. consumers. Most of the stories were pretty general in nature, but at least one examined the outlook for the supermarket industry.

First, we have to note that most Americans are not in dire financial straits. A relative few are burdened by job loss or a sub-prime mortgage. But read the newspapers and listen to the talking heads on television and you start wondering if it’s time to bury your life savings in the potato field out back.

Consumer confidence sank to a five-year low this month, the result of tight credit, rising prices and stalled employment. Some economists are quoted as saying the economy is already in recession, and the earliest we’ll drag ourselves out of it may be later this year, after taxpayers have had a chance to play with the money provided as part of the the government’s economic stimulus program.

Meanwhile, home prices fell almost 11.5% in January, the steepest drop since records first started being kept in 1987. Although sales of new homes were up, average prices nationwide have been growing more slowly or outright declining for 19 consecutive months.

So… let’s eat! An analyst from Banc of America Securities predicts supermarkets will get a boost from more people eating at home. “Clearly, with income growth stalling, consumers are finding it necessary to spend more of their nominal dollars on food, and particularly food at home,” he said in a note.

Scott Mushkin, vice president and a senior equity research analyst, was writing for investors, telling them large chains like Safeway and Kroger could very easily outperform the market during this period of instability, with same-store sales liable to reach as high as 7%. Each chain is actively involved in capital projects, store planning, and merchandising and pricing initiatives — all of which appeal to tight-fisted consumers.

With net profits hovering around 2%, the supermarket industry doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room. But this is a good time for them to show off and strut their stuff. Let’s show everyone what we’re capable of. It’s time to tout self-reliance and empowerment. Host more health fairs, get staff dietitians out into the stores, promote private label organics and keep stores themselves clean and accessible. That’ll give consumers something to feel good about.

We last visited the issue of hormone-free milk labeling in January, when Pennsylvania officials backed off a ruling that would have banned the use of “rBST-free” labels. It was a win for consumers, who protested that they have the right to know what is (or isn’t) in the dairy products they buy.

The battle is far from over. Last week, Wal-Mart announced that it would source all of its Great Value private label milk from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones. Given the retailer’s size, this is a big move for the industry. But don’t expect Monsanto, which developed the growth hormone, to go down without a fight. The ag-tech company — a lumbering giant in its own right — is going toe-to-toe right now with Kroger in Ohio, where early last month governor Ted Strickland issued an emergency rule that banned unverified hormone-free claims. Kroger sources its own brand of milk from cows not given rBST, and wants to tell its customers as much.

Kroger, Wal-Mart and others say that they’re responding to consumer concerns about supplementing the development of food-producing animals. “We are getting a lot of calls on this,” Kroger spokeswoman Meghan Glynn told the Cincinnati Enquirer. Monsanto, on the other hand, argues that adding hormone-free labels implies that the product is unsafe, when in fact the FDA okayed the use of these hormones back in 1993.

No matter what the FDA says, consumers are becoming increasingly wary of biotech encroaching on their food. Nine out of 10 of them want genetically modified food to be labeled. And who can forget the outcry against the FDA’s decision to allow cloned animals into the food chain?

So far, federal regulators have declined Monsanto’s request to get involved in the controversy. The one thing the company forgets — and retailers (to their great credit) remember — is that this is not about milk labels, or even hormones. It’s about the customer.

Remember Max Headroom? If you’re a child of the 80’s like me, you certainly know the stuttering media character voiced by Matt Frewer. Or, maybe you were a fan of New Coke (Go ahead. After all these years, it’s OK to admit it). Max was the spokes-entity who continued hawking the reformulated beverage after a public outcry compelled the company to re-introduce Classic Coke. “C-C-C-Catch the wave!”

Indeed. Forgive the stroll down memory lane. It’s just that I was reminded of good old Max when Ahold-owned Peapod announced this week that it was introducing the “first ever virtual nutritionist,” capable of sifting through all the products sold by the online grocer and highlighting the ones that meet a customer’s dietary needs.

Subscribers can use one of five pre-set diet plans offered (gluten-free, peanut-free, high-fiber, low-fat and low-sodium) or they can create their own customized plan using a blank Nutrition Facts panel. Here they enter the maximum desired for calories, fat, carbohydrates, fat, etc. and then activate the filter prior to building their shopping list. Peapod will only display available products meeting that criteria.

The “NutriFilter” service also takes away the challenge of trying to determine how much to eat of any nutrient. The press release uses fiber as an example. Users click on the “fiber” icon while compiling their shopping list, and enter the amount of fiber they want products to contain, and the program will highlight the approved products.

The idea has merit because we all know just how difficult it’s become to decipher the various Nutrition Facts panels, on-pack claims and health logos clogging packages. Services like this allow users to shop without being experts; as long as they have some idea of their dietary needs, then they’re good candidates to take advantage of Peapod’s NutriFilter.

Nutrifilter is certainly not the wisecracking, surreal Max. But the ability of an artificial intelligence to help us navigate today’s world — whether politics or nutrition — is something I think he would have found worthy of comment.

There probably aren’t that many people in the food industry who recognize the name Philip Howard. Many are familiar, however, with the colorful bubble graphics he creates every year that chart the structure of the organic industry. They’re easy-to-read guides to an ever-growing, ever-consolidating section of the supermarket — and they’re getting noticed by consumers.

Yesterday, in her Well blog for The New York Times, columnist Tara Parker-Pope wrote a post about Howard’s latest creation, an animated sequence showing acquisitions in the organic industry over time. Titled “When Big Business Eats Organic,” the piece discussed how large companies like General Mills and Hain Celestial own many beloved organic titles.

“These relationships aren’t very apparent,” Howard, an assistant professor of agriculture at Michigan State University, was quoted as saying.

Coverage like this is helping make the industry more transparent. Clorox’s buyout of Burt’s Bees last November appeared in all of the country’s major newspapers and zipped across the blogosphere. “I love BB products and am having a hard time in making a decision about if I will make future purchases of BB,” commented one consumer on a Chicago Tribune health blog. Coke’s recent 40% investment in Honest Tea generated similar buzz.

Companies like Clorox are responding to increasing consumer awareness about buyouts by launching sophisticated marketing campaigns. In February, Burt’s Bees started a “Natural Vs.” campaign, which sought to explain the term “natural” in the personal care category, and how Burt’s Bees upholds that standard.

Retailers are also responding, though not in the way you might think. A couple of manufacturers at last week’s Natural Products Expo West mentioned that supermarkets are looking for “new niche” products in the health and wellness category. They fear consumers might begin rejecting some products simply because they’ve been taken over by large corporations.

Of course, just because a company is big doesn’t mean they’ll exploit the smaller companies they acquire. In many cases, they can help that brand reach an audience it otherwise wouldn’t. Retailers should support the brands that are the ideal of authenticity, no matter who owns them.

Talk all you want about health and wellness. Safety comes first. That’s why we were interested to read that the Food and Drug Administration is planning to open offices in China, staffed by eight full-time regulators.

The officers will be attached to diplomatic posts in the country, specifically the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou. The announcement comes in the wake of significant recalls involving pet food, medication and toothpaste, among other products.

“Our efforts to fill permanent FDA positions in China are a significant step toward ensuring access to safe food, drugs and medical devices in the global market,” said Murray Lumpkin, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for international and special programs.

Boy, did he get that right. China has emerged as an important, critical resource for imports, including organic commodities. Yet its products are capable of killing unwitting consumers (both animal and human).

The timing is good. China is under tremendous pressure to clean up its act in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympics. If it wants the good will to continue after the flame is extinguished and the athletes return home, it’s going to have to start opening up a bit more.

Our California roadtrip to Natural Products Expo West is over. We spent three full days in the aisles of the Anaheim Convention Center, visiting exhibitors, talking with retailers and looking for the Next Big Thing.

Among the top performers at this year’s show were products that were enhanced, infused or improved with the addition of ingredients like antioxidants, or omega-3 fatty acids. There was a lot of tea, chocolate and coffee with fair trade certification. Kid cuisine continued to show improvement with a new round of healthful snacks and meals. And there was a generous splash of value-added waters. Many touted higher pH’s. The alkaline formulations of 8.0 or more were promoted as more nourishing for cells.

If there’s a common thread that ties these disparate categories together, it’s that they represent the hottest movers in the supermarket today. What we saw this past week wasn’t groundbreaking, but retailers can take heart that the products they currently stock promise to get better, and there are still plenty of consumers eager to purchase these items.

There was not only plenty to see, but plenty to listen to. Author Michael Pollan delivered the keynote address at this year’s show, talking about “our national eating disorder.”

“Food-related, chronic diseases are what kill most of us in this country,” he said, noting we are becoming a Lipitor nation, a place where our Western diet causes Western diseases like diabetes.

Pollan’s hypothesis behind this phenomenon clearly resonated with attendees. America’s ongoing obsession with individual nutrients like fat and carbohydrates reduces the significance of whole foods, and the complex interactions between nutrients as they are consumed and metabolized by the body. The country believes in this approach, which he calls nutritionism.

The problem is we still know so little about the science of good eating. There has yet to emerge a definitive best practice to this art. And so, it’s better to keep things simple. Pollan put it this way: “Nutrition is like surgery in the 16th century. It has a lot of promise and is interesting to watch, but I wouldn’t get on the table just yet.”

With cloned meat, Monsanto sugar beets and the like making headlines these days, it seems GMOs are once again on the minds of consumers and the food industry. Judging by the buzz at this week’s Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, companies are looking to take action.

One organization that’s taking the lead is the Non GMO Project, a nonprofit working to establish a voluntary standard and label claim for GMO-free products. Right now they’re campaigning for retailer support and signing up manufacturers interested in completing the standard’s certification process, which they’ve posted for public comment until April 29th. The organization hopes to have a working standard in place by Fall 2009.

The Non GMO Project’s standard looks to address three areas: traceability, segregation, and sourcing. Each step focuses on keeping a product out of contact with genetically modified ingredients, and accredited labs throughout the country will do the testing to make sure that happens.

Supporters said that a certification like this can’t come soon enough. The majority of American commodity crops contain GMO ingredients, which the FDA has OK’d but have been linked to harmful health effects in some studies.

“I don’t believe we’re winning this war,” said Michael Funk, CEO of United Natural Foods and one of the founders of the Non GMO Project, during a presentation on the topic. He went on to tell audience members to “Educate consumers. Talk to your neighbors and make them aware of what’s going on.”

A lot of the top players in the natural and organics industry are behind the project: Whole Foods, Nature’s Path, Organic Valley, UNFI and White Wave Foods, to name a few. So the issue is definitely gaining momentum, not to mention publicity.

But for supermarket retailers, GMO labeling like this is a tricky prospect. After all, with so many products that do contain GMOs on shelves, how do you promote a label like the Non GMO Project’s without disparaging much of your inventory? And perhaps the most difficult hurdle is defining that term “GMO” for consumers.

Still, the organic industry had many of these same challenges, and look at where it’s ended up.