According to a recent poll by the NPD Group, 79% of consumers believe the U.S. economy is in a recession or at least headed toward one. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said as much on Monday. Who can blame them? The price of gas increased almost a dollar per gallon from this time last year, and some economists believe that it could puncture the $4 mark by spring. Food, healthcare and energy costs have also shot up. And, oh yeah, the housing market is stagnant.

Restaurants are already feeling the heat. New numbers from research firm Technomic show companies’ overall growth dropped this past year, largely due to the “struggle against fuel prices, increasing cost of labor and commodities and menu price increases,” according to Technomic’s president, Ron Paul.

Normally, this could be considered good news for much of the supermarket industry, which traditionally becomes the go-to for consumers during a recession, capturing the dollars that are no longer being spent on restaurant food and other “luxuries.”

This time matters are a bit more complicated, however. For the past few years, organics and other categories associated with wellness have helped drive growth in the supermarket sector. These better-for-you products and services brought premium prices and better margins to the shelves. Now that the economy is turning sour, what will become of this scenario?

Simple logic dictates that sales of organic, all-natural and other premium-priced offerings will slow down. But consumers are fickle, and retailers might be surprised to see them striving to minimize medical problems by eating better and smarter.

One thing is for sure: The modern supermarket industry has been around for more than 60 years, and has taken plenty of rides on the economic roller coaster. Everyone should be healthy enough to survive this trip.

On the eve of the critical Democratic primaries in Ohio and Texas, we thought it might be time to start talking about the candidates and their (still evolving) positions on the environment and sustainability.

Nobody knows just how large the “green” voting bloc is, but with the candidates’ leads “shakier than cafeteria Jell-O” (one of the many food-related “Ratherisms” uttered during past election nights by network anchorman Dan Rather), there’s a general feeling that the environmentally sensitive voters are a group to be courted.

So, where does one research the greeness of the American electorate? Catalina Marketing, the targeted coupon company, went to that town square of consumption, the supermarket. First, the firm identified a green shopper as someone who made purchases from a list of products promoted as eco-friendly between April 2006 and April 2007. They used that information to answer the question: “Do green shoppers translate to green voters?”

The research did yield a few surprising results. For instance, the Democratic state of California — often seen as a healthy place to live — indexed at the average for the number of green shoppers. California’s neighbors, Oregon and Washington, both ranked well above the average.

Of the Republican states, Colorado and Alaska both ranked above average in their tendency to have green shoppers, with Alaska beating out even blue states Oregon and Washington. The top five green states most likely to have green shoppers in order are: Alaska (red), Washington (blue), Oregon (blue), Colorado (red) and Vermont (blue). The states least likely to have green shoppers, in order, are: Oklahoma (red), Alabama (red), Minnesota (blue), North Dakota (red) and Wisconsin (blue).

Catalina also crunched some numbers and found that green product sales have doubled since 2005, with an 82% increase in 2007 alone. Boy, would Hillary or Barack love to have that number posted on their returns.

More news on the animal welfare front.

Just last week, Safeway announced new guidelines for proteins, and today, Harris Teeter said it, too, would be adopting almost identical standards and give buying preference to suppliers who use humane poultry slaughter methods; forego the use of sow gestation crates; and farm cage-free eggs.

The move comes after representatives of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stated their intention to speak out about the company’s lack of initiative at the company’s annual meeting tomorrow.

The policy changes will be phased in. Harris Teeter will increase its purchase of chickens killed by controlled-atmosphere slaughter systems by 5% over each of the next three years; increase the amount of pig meat that it purchases from suppliers that are phasing out gestation crates by 10% in 2009, 15% in 2010, and 20% in 2011; and increase the amount of cage-free eggs that it sells to 9% by 2009, and work toward increasing that amount to 12% in 2010. The eggs will be marketed as a new line of Harris Teeter-branded cage-free eggs.

The question becomes why are threats needed to get the industry to change? It’s as if retail executives need a captive-bolt stunner held to their heads before buying policies are updated. The most recent recall — the largest in U.S. history — resulted from an undercover video taken by the Humane Society of the United States. The disturbing footage of downer cattle being prodded with bang sticks and pushed with forklifts is well-publicized and was featured on news programs.

Safeway and Harris Teeter are just ahead of public opinion in changing their animal welfare guidelines. One look at images like that and we won’t need activists. The next voices we hear will be consumers themselves.

It’s no secret that the growing popularity of healthful and sustainable products has made corporations rethink their business plan. For many, the quickest way into the game has been to buy up promising natural and organic producers. Clorox’s purchase of Burt’s Bees is a recent example of this, as is Coke’s 40% investment in Honest Tea earlier this month.

At the same time, manufacturers are retooling their operations from within. Take Coke, for instance, which is increasingly gearing its infrastructure towards health and wellness. In addition to the Honest Tea deal, Coke is working to reduce packaging, running more energy-efficient refrigeration systems, and eventually going “water neutral” — meaning they want to give back as much water as their beverages require to make.

In addition to all this, earlier this week the manufacturer announced it had set a goal to recycle or reuse 100% of the aluminum cans it sells in America. This builds upon last year’s initiative to reuse 100% of the PET bottles produced by the company.

By the end of 2008, Coke hopes to have recycled “more than 100 million pounds each of PET and aluminum,” according to John Burgess, president and COO of Coca-Cola Recycling, an internal sustainability group formed last year by the company.

The commitment of Coke and others just goes to show the many ways the “whole” in whole health can be interpreted. There’s really no one right answer. The point here is that what started as a niche business has quickly evolved into a smarter, more cost-effective way of doing business.

The number of in-store medical clinics in the United States has been growing at an astounding pace. In just over a year, more than 700 of these walk-in offices have opened in supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandisers.

At that rate, there’s bound to be a few bumps and bruises — although one or two have actually succumbed to poor planning and inadequate financials. That’s why it was interesting to hear that Wal-Mart is rolling out clinics that are co-branded with area hospitals and medical groups, starting in April with a location in Little Rock, Ark. that will be staffed by nurse practitioners from the nearby St. Vincent Health System. By 2010, Wal-Mart hopes to have 400 of these clinics up and running.

By including the local medical community in this business, Wal-Mart is taking positive steps to quiet ongoing criticism of in-store clinics. Organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association have discouraged people from visiting them, citing a lack of quality care and fragmentation of the healthcare system, among other concerns.

Perhaps more important to the consumer is that Wal-Mart is taking steps to upgrade what has so far been an inconsistent format. Don’t forget that, last month, CheckUps, a company that operated clinics in 23 Wal-Mart stores, became insolvent and closed down unexpectedly. That had to hurt.

It’s odd to be blogging about a blog, but that’s what we’re doing today, after being invited by Seth Goldman, the “TeaEO” of Honest Tea, to read through his entry on why he approves of Coca-Cola taking a 40% stake in his company.

“Our challenge is to find a partner who wants to ‘buy in’ to our mission, rather than one who wants us to ’sell out,’” he wrote. We know exactly what he’s talking about. Large CPG companies have become huge investors in the health and wellness business. In the process they’re often maligned by core consumers as faceless corporations that strip their acquisitions and partners of everything for the sake of profit.

These types of investments do have benefits. A small company can’t spread its ideals to the masses if it can’t get the product out. This lack of adequate capital for research and development, marketing and distribution is what everyone, including Goldman, talks about when the conventional manufacturers step in with a proposal like this.

There’s been a bit of hand-wringing lately. Clorox snapped up Burt’s Bees and Kellogg’s acquired Bear Naked. Now this. Indeed, sometimes these deals go bad. There’s a sense of betrayal and compromise — think Ben & Jerry’s or Silk, as Goldman did in his blog.

“The world of mission-driven business is littered with entrepreneurs whose companies lost their soul or at least lost their leadership,” is how he put it. The company takes pains to point out that it will continue to operate as an independent business with the same leadership.

To Goldman’s (and Coke’s) credit, there’s a lot of transparency in the announcement. The reasoning is sound, even if current fans might be disappointed. If that turns out to be the case, it’s good Honest Tea has (pardon the pun) acquired the ability to reach to new customers.

Late Friday Supervalu announced they would be shuttering the Sunflower Markets concept it introduced with fanfare just about two years ago. There are five stores currently operating: three in Ohio, and one each in Chicago and Indianapolis. All will close the week of Feb. 18, according to a brief story in the Ohio publication, Business First of Columbus.

While a surprise, it’s not really a shock. During Supervalu’s July 2007 quarterly conference call, president and CEO Jeff Noddle alluded briefly to Sunflower’s performance, and seemed less than enthusiastic about it.

“We certainly like the concept, but the playing field has changed a little bit, and we have to evaluate whether a separate, distinct format is the right way to address it or if incorporating it more into traditional stores is a better path,” he told analysts.

Well, management has evaluated the situation, and the decision dovetails nicely with the company’s new enthusiasm for its Premium Fresh & Healthy remodeling program, which Noddle touted during the most recent call just last week.

“We are pleased with our early remodel performance and plan to maintain our commitment to the important remodel program, increasing our major remodels in fiscal 2009 to 165 stores, up from fiscal 2008’s 125 store remodels,” he said.

We don’t know exactly what management’s expectations were, though Supervalu spokeswoman Haley Meyer said the Sunflower wasn’t meeting company expectations. It’s a shame the Sunflower concept didn’t work. It represented an unprecedented commitment to the idea of a stand-alone wellness format, and marked an exciting departure from conventional retail thinking. Supervalu took a big chance. Publix has been moving much more slowly in opening its long-delayed GreenWise units, and Bashas’ has christened a single Ike’s Farmers’ Market.

We’ll leave the discussion over why this happened to you, but be assured shoppers will be seeing the more profitable elements of Sunflower in new and remodeled Supervalu-owned stores going forward.

In a speech yesterday to more than 7,000 store managers, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott spoke of a future where solar panels and windmills might greet customers as they drive into a store parking lot. Considering where the world’s largest retailer stands right now, with more than 3,100 stores and a history of breakneck expansion, that’s wishful thinking — Scott channeling Don Quixote, if you will.

But Wal-Mart has been making tangible strides toward sustainability of late — like the recently launched packaging reduction program, among other things — and so the lofty statement mainly underscored this progress as well as similar plans for the future.

And those plans are substantial. Within the next three years, Scott said, the company will work to become 25% more energy efficient, primarily through leveraging its considerable influence with suppliers.

“We will only work with suppliers who maintain our standards throughout our relationship,” said Scott. “So we will make certification and compliance part of our supplier agreements, and ask suppliers to report to us regularly.”

In addition, the company wants to pass the energy saving habit on to these suppliers, as well as to customers. Scott said Wal-Mart will expect suppliers to reduce their energy use by 20%. The retailer would also like to “double the sale of products that help make homes more energy efficient,” according to Scott.

On the healthcare front, Wal-Mart plans to drive down prescription costs, saving more than $100 million for customers and employers. The retailer also plans to increase the number of electronic prescriptions it fills by 400%.

“E-prescribing will be more convenient for our customers,” said Scott. “But more importantly, it will be safer.”

Scott’s goals for Wal-Mart are admirable, and perhaps they should be. The company didn’t become number one by being environmentally sensitive and nice to neighbors. They changed a lot of communities and paved over a lot of trees. That was savvy business at one point, but now that’s changing as companies and consumers grow more environmentally conscious.

Considering all of this, you have to wonder: Could this be Wal-Mart’s way of saying sorry?

The Food and Drug Administration’s approval this week of food from cloned animals drew a storm of reaction from the food industry and beyond. It would appear that the closer the issue gets to the consumer level, the more likely there will be outright opposition or — at the very least — caution and heavily qualified approval. We’ve provided a rundown of several that you should find interesting:

Retailers: Although the Food Marketing Institute stated last year that retailers trust the FDA’s ability to determine what’s safe, some retailers said they flat-out refuse to sell cloned meat or milk. Kroger said as much in an LA Times story, as did Whole Foods in a statement earlier this month.

Government: The U.S. Department of Agriculture supports the FDA’s report, but asks that suppliers uphold a voluntary moratorium to keep cloned animals off the market for right now. Then there’s Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who forwarded an amendment in this year’s farm bill to delay the FDA’s cloning decision. She said the FDA acted “recklessly.”

Industry Organizations: The Organic Trade Association again emphasized that cloned animals will not make their way into organic products. Meanwhile, the American Meat Institute said it will review the issue further, and the National Milk Producers Federation voiced its support for the USDA’s call for moratorium.

Watchdog Groups: The Center for Science in the Public Interest is satisfied with the safety of cloned animals, but believes ethical and environmental implications are still a question mark. The Center for Food Safety, on the other hand, believes the FDA has opened “Pandora’s Box.”

This afternoon the Food and Drug Administration gave its official approval of food coming from cloned animals and their offspring. In its final report, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, the agency stated that it had taken all moral, religious and scientific factors into account, and concluded that food from cloned animals is just as safe as food coming from ordinary animals.

There are currently 600 or so cloned animals in the United States, and officials note it may be several years before milk or meat from cloned animals even is ready for the consumer market. Because they’re so expensive to produce, most of them right now are only used for breeding purposes.

“Many farmers and ranchers are already using other assisted reproductive technologies, such as artificial insemination, embryo transplant, and in-vitro fertilization to produce superior animals,” said Bruce Knight, under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs with the USDA, which supported the FDA in its announcement. “Cloning is another breeding technology that has evolved and has now been demonstrated to be safe.”

Let’s see how consumers demonstrate their support.