Experts estimate that last year’s Colony Collapse Disorder claimed nearly one third of all American beehives. Swiftly and mysteriously the tiny pollinators — normally very territorial — flew off, leaving behind empty homes and a swarm of questions.

Now there’s another, equally puzzling die-off that’s occurring in the Northeast. Thousands of bats have succumbed to what’s being called “white nose syndrome.” The name refers to the only visible symptom of the disease — a flaky white fungus that forms around the animal’s nose and mouth. Scientists don’t know much about the fast-spreading killer so far. What’s certain, however, is that it’s draining the bats’ winter fat storage before their hibernation period ends, causing them to starve to death.

This may not sound like news to supermarket operators, but it is. Like bees, bats help pollinate citrus fruits and other plants. They also feed on beetles, moths and other insects that can damage produce crops.

“Most bat researchers would agree that this is the gravest threat to bats they have ever seen,” said Alan Hicks, bat expert with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.

The bee problem has yet to be resolved, as well. According to the American Beekeeping Federation, the colony collapse rate is similar to last year’s. Scientists have linked the phenomenon with the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, but it appears that’s not the only culprit; pesticides and global warming have also made the short list of possible reasons.

The science community is scrambling for answers, and manufacturers are trying to help. Burt’s Bees recently ran a public service announcement prior to screenings of “Bee Movie,” asking audiences to register on the company’s website for a free packet of wildflower seeds. And ice cream maker Haagen Dazs, which is owned by General Mills, recently awarded $250,000 to two research teams working to decode the bee deaths (25 out of its 60 flavors are made from bee-pollinated fruits and nuts).

Amidst the swirl of merchandising and logistics that retailers confront every day, it’s easy to forget that behind our food chain is a complex ecosystem. It’s still a mystery why bats and bees are dying, but that doesn’t mean companies shouldn’t take an active interest.

Everyone talks about sustainability going mainstream. Well, it’s also going classical.

We’re talking about music; specifically, a recital by the eco-friendly Korean pianist, Soyeon Lee (even her name has a heart-healthy, syllabic ring to it). According to a report in The New York Times, Ms. Lee performed the second half of her show at Carnegie Hall wearing a dress made entirely of 6,000 recycled grape juice containers.

Take a look (and thanks to Dale Crowell at Honest Tea for sending this to us). I’m not one to deconstruct fashion, but it certainly makes a statement, considering the gown is made up of aseptic pouches popular with kids. In fact, it was during a tour of the Princeton University campus last summer, where a number of children’s day camps were being held, that she noticed the similar juice pouches overflowing from waste receptacles.

According to the article, Ms. Lee contacted TerraCycle, a firm the creates organic products that are not only made from waste, but are also packaged entirely in waste; as well as Honest Tea, which uses recycled packaging for its beverages as well. Both companies commissioned a designer to make the dress, and co-sponsored the concert.

Ms. Lee carried the theme one stanza further, and included recycled concertos in her repertoire. It just goes to show you, yet again, how creative people can be in getting the message across to consumers and the general public.

Sure, the health of our nation and the environment is serious business. But who says we can’t have fun trying to improve it?…. Encore!

So, is green the new red? That’s what we’re wondering as we look around at the various ways retailers are playing up Valentine’s Day 2008. Pesticide-free roses, fair trade chocolates, eco-wines and organic cotton lingerie are just a few of the offerings available to consumers this year.

The National Retail Federation, which tracks holiday activity, reports that people will spend about $123 on Valentine’s Day this year, with total sales topping $17 billion. More than 200 million roses are exchanged and 35 million boxes of chocolate are opened; wine is also a big seller. One look at this week’s circulars, anywhere in the country, and you know supermarkets get some of the credit for these transactions.

Valentine’s Day is an indulgent, romantic holiday. Many consumers are ready to spend (others think they better have). This willingness makes it much easier for retailers to push a big upsell to greener gifts, with their upscale image and better margins. Most manufacturers, processors and distributors already carry ‘better-for-you” options in just about every category, including floral, confectionary and alcohol.

Are supermarkets doing all they can to steer sales to more environmentally friendly choices? Consumers have exhibited a wide-ranging sensitivity to issues like sustainability. Phrases like fair trade and organic already resonate with them. The products are available. Retailers only need to play Cupid.

It’s always great to hear from independent natural and organic retailers. Many of them are passionate, uncomplicated operations that have their finger on the pulse of their community and the movement. We recently spoke with Cassie Green, owner of Green Grocer Chicago, a 900-square-foot store that opened last week in the windy city’s West Town neighborhood, and got her insights on what it’s like to be a small store in the big city.

Describe the location and the neighborhood. Why is it ideal for your store?
Within a square mile of our store location, there are 44,000 residents. So it’s a really concentrated group of people, especially when you consider that the closest grocery store is a mile away. It used to be a rough neighborhood, but in the past two to three years the housing prices have gone up 30, 40, 50%, which is kind of insane. But it’s still a mixed neighborhood. There are a lot of people who take interest in the social aspect of our store and our mission, as well as people with a lot of money. In both cases, they’re willing to spend more on groceries. It’s interesting to see who comes through the door.

How are you getting the word out about Green Grocer?
We’re operating on a shoestring budget, so we had to be creative. We had our friends go around the neighborhood and tape our coupons to people’s front doors. We also give coupons to every customer that comes in, and we often ask if they have friends in the neighborhood who’d like to stop by. Then there’s the owner of the video store across the street — her name’s Tootsie, and she’s this 5-foot-tall sassy blond who grew up in the neighborhood, knows all the gossip — and she sends all her customers over. So we’ve had a lot of our customers do the marketing for us, and they’re all for it.

Your store makes a point of selling local products — what are some interesting examples of these and the relationships that come with them?
One of our best selling brands is Tomato Mountain Farms, owned by a guy up in Wisconsin named Chris. We also source from a company that’s three blocks away that makes roasted beet chips called papalenas. They’re so good. We sampled those, and we ran out in the first three cases within a few days. So I walked up there and grabbed a couple more cases. There’s also a pasta sauce that we get from about a half-mile away, from a company called Coupla Guys Foods. I work with the owner Joe and his wife.

Do you offer prepared foods, a salad bar, things like that?
The store is tiny, but we do have some stations. We do a drip coffee so people can come in and grab a cup real quick. We have an area with prepared foods. There’s a local guy who does organic and seasonal catering, so we have him to make sandwiches and salads so people can grab and go. There are a couple businesses in the area, so we actually do a pretty decent lunch business.

Why is now a good time to open a local-and-organic store like this?
The awareness is there now, and that’s a huge benefit to a small store like ours. People are beginning to understand what terms like organic and local actually mean. I also think that people are appreciating more of a personal experience while shopping. Having a store that’s 100,000 square feet is not as appealing as having a store where you have that personal connection, where people know your name.

Natural and organics retailing has come a long way from wide-plank floorboards and bulk bins of brown rice. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry that’s constantly evolving, and you need a lot more than good intentions to stay afloat.

We were reminded of this fact late last week with the news that Mike Cianciarulo had resigned as CEO of Asheville, North Carolina-based Earth Fare. Appointed to the post back in 1998, Cianciarulo wielded an authentic approach to health and wellness that, in many ways, set the tone for the natural and organic industry. Under his guidance, Earth Fare implemented outreach programs with local farmers, introduced organic fresh meals, and banned certain unhealthful ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, which it did in 2004. The fact that Cianciarulo had previously worked at the much larger Publix Super Markets made his journey all the more interesting.

“Prior to Mike coming on board, we were a little bit disorganized and not quite as stable as we needed to be,” said Troy DeGroff, Earth Fare’s director of sales and marketing, who noted that Cianciarulo left the company for personal reasons. “Mike really put in the practices and the foundation to help us get to where we are today. I think he’ll definitely be remembered as the person who helped Earth Fare continue its solid growth.”

When Monitor Clipper Partners bought out Earth Fare in 2006, some in the industry feared that the emphasis would turn more to extracting profits, and away from building on the authenticity Earth Fare nurtured during Cianciarulo’s tenure. During his nine years, the retailer grew from two stores in North Carolina to thirteen across three states.

As a food retailer first, Cianciarulo had the good sense to respect expansion as a double-edged sword. It can help build the shopping experience, or it can compromise it. One can only hope that the new CEO, Fresh Fields veteran Jack Murphy, remembers his roots, too, as he leads “the charge to accelerate growth and increase Earth Fare market share throughout the Southeast,” as the press release announcing the executive change so succinctly put it.

Dessert is a subject we love to write about because it’s not something you typically get to discuss in the wellness business, unless it’s about portions and fat and similar topics that take all the fun out of eating it in the first place.

Luckily, there’s a trend currently working its way through in-store bakery cases across the country that satisfies both dessert fanatics and calorie-counters. It’s basically a miniature version of popular desserts crammed into what can best be described as shot glasses. They were spotted just before the holidays being introduced in the upscale King’s Super Market chain in New Jersey. The Duo Mousse Shots are available in four varieties: Chocolate, Coffee, Crème Caramel and Raspberry Lemon.

At least two casual service restaurant chains, Chili’s Grill & Bar and T.G.I. Friday’s, have offered them since the fall. Chili’s calls them Sweet Shots, with names like Seven Layers of Chocolate, Strawberry Wave Cheesecake and Dutch Apple Caramel Cheesecake. Friday’s put them on their revamped menu as Mini Dessert Shots (pictured), in Rocky Road, Chocolate Raspberry, Peanut Butter Cup, Chocolate Chip Mint and Orange Cream.

Chefs who responded to the National Restaurant Association’s annual “What’s Hot & What’s Not” survey named bite-sized desserts the hottest of the 194 items ranked, with more than 83% calling it “hot.” This could be a real neat way to get wellness shoppers to visit the ISB for more than artisan bread and gluten-free cookies. These spoon-size items are real desserts with portion control built in. Retailers can develop a whole bunch of fun flavor profiles, and offer them bundled — either themselves or with family fresh meals.

Who says dessert has to be served last in the whole health movement?

Berkeley-based food thinker Michael Pollan used his last book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” to examine how we Americans get our food. This time, he’s looking at the food itself. His latest book, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” is hot off the presses at Penguin.

You might not think retailers — all food industry types, actually — need to read these types of deep-thought, meditative books, but they should. Not only are their customers reading it (purchased from their very own in-store book sections, perhaps?), they’re using Pollan’s logical, even-minded insights to reconsider how they eat. In turn, that influences how they shop.

Pollan’s philosophy is evident on the cover of his latest tome, when he writes: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Translated, it means buy authentic, simple foods, found in the perimeter departments, preferably produce. Great. No problem. That’s what many shoppers are trying to do already. What Pollan does here, in his own inimitable way, is reinforce that desire with a grounded, logical argument that appeared in earlier stories he did for The New York Times Magazine.

So far, it’s getting strong reviews, so it’ll likely do as well as Omnivore did when it was published in 2004. If Oprah even mentions it, however, watch out. Better get your copy now.

Del Monte is exposing everything it’s got starting today — everything about its fresh produce products, nutrition, recipe ideas and healthful lifestyle advice.

The Coral Gables, Fla.- based company today is launching www.fruits.com, a new consumer website that profiles the company’s products and shows how they can fit into a healthful lifestyle. Del Monte has been hanging onto the highly desirable domain name for quite some time now, and it’s the first time it’s being used to full advantage. The launch is actually part of a larger, multifaceted communications platform, but the consumer web program is among the first to be introduced.

The new site is divided into four sections: Products, Recipes, Nutrition and Fitness and a Kids Corner. The latter two are the most interactive. Nutrition and Fitness is overseen by Tracey Ryan, a registered dietician, and Bryan Fedor, a personal trainer; while Kids Corner includes games that carry a nutrition message.

Some might say it’s a bit late for Del Monte to be coming around with a consumer web site like this. But let’s face it: Consumers need all the help they can get, and with such a simple domain name to remember, www.fruits.com will become popular soon enough.

It was just last week that we wrote about a store opening in California devoted to anything and everything local. But that one is situated in the bucolic Napa Valley area, while this one is located in the heart of Brooklyn, N.Y.

You gotta problem with that?

Good. Because the new store, Urban Rustic, is actually a full-service grocery store in the trendy Williamsburg section. It features produce, bulk and dry goods and frozen foods, meat, dairy and selected seafood, juice and coffee, cold beverages, health and beauty products, and household goods in 2,600 square feet of floor space. It also has an elevated café area seating 18 people and patio space in back.

Dan Cipriani, co-owner along with Luis Illades and Aaron Woolf, told us the name of the store describes the balance the trio is seeking between connection and community, and authenticity and ethics.

Opening a store in Brooklyn during a cold, snowy week in December has required balance of a different sort, though.

“If we were opening in the summer, it would have been a lot easier because there’s such an abundance of things available,” he said. Nevertheless, demand has created a larger pool of potential vendors to pull from, he added.

“I’ve found a lot more locally than I actually expected for this time of year. It’s been really kind of encouraging that we’ve been able to fill the shelves quite well.”

On the shelves and in the cases are products from the immediate Northeast region: bread from Amy’s in Manhattan; meats from Stone & Thistle Farm in upstate New York; Blue cheese from Berkshire Blue in Massachusetts; and even a number of products from the borough itself, including Six Point beers and ales, Skinnyskinny soaps, McClure’s pickles, M.J.’s herbal salves.

Stores like Urban Rustic and Oxbow Public Market in California might not directly compete with mainstream retailers. But they are still important. Conventional operators should note these concepts provide consumers with a stronger connection to the foods they’re purchasing. It’s a demand shoppers will soon be bringing with them into their regular supermarket, if they haven’t already. Are you prepared?

We thought this past summer’s debate over the environmental impact of bottled water containers had frozen over for the winter. But it appears that the controversy keeps thawing itself out.

Earlier this month, Canada’s Mountain Equipment Co-op removed from its shelves all water bottles and other containers made with bisphenol-a, a chemical used in the manufacturing process to strengthen plastic. What’s interesting here is that BPA, as it’s called, is not only found in disposable bottles, but many durable, reusable containers — ones that are supposed to be the eco-friendly alternative to the disposable alternatives, which are at the heart of the debate.

Mountain Equipment, which Toronto’s Globe and Mail cites as “the country’s largest specialty outdoor-goods retailer,” said the decision reflects skepticism about the safety of BPA, which studies have shown can mimic estrogen in the body and potentially disrupt the reproductive system. But most evidence up to now seems to indicate that the chemical is safe when used in small amounts.

Medical findings aside, the outcry against BPA has a ways to go before it reaches the full-blown campaigning of this year’s bottled water protests. Still, it’s something to watch, especially as more studies on BPA pour in. Health Canada, the country’s version of our Food and Drug Administration will release a more comprehensive report on the safety of BPA in May 2008.