Manufacturers and retailers are really falling in love with the idea of nutrition guides. Everyone keeps coming out with their own versions. By the end of this year, consumers will be seeing a host of new programs in the aisles.
ConAgra Foods, unveiled its own initiative earlier this week, and is taking a slightly different approach to the issue. The manufacturer of such brands as Healthy Choice and Orville Redenbacher’s has devised a system based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPyramid dietary guidelines.
The program, approved by the USDA, tells consumers just how much each product contributes to fulfilling the recommendations set by MyPyramid. In an example provided by the company, a Healthy Choice Fiesta Chicken meal that contains chicken, rice, fruit and vegetables will have a graphic (at the bottom of the image shown) indicating the product provides 15% of the grains, 30% of the vegetables, 15% of the fruit, and 40% of the meat and beans that a consumer should eat based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet. The labels will appear on more than 700 ConAgra-made products beginning in May, and include only those that offer at least a certain threshold amount of important nutrients. It’s quite an initiative, and will be a cornerstone of the company’s Start Making Choices umbrella program.
Freedom of choice is part of the American Way; in this case, consumers looking to improve their diets can choose from a growing number of nutrition guides. ConAgra’s new icons are one way to eat better, provided shoppers purchase those brands. Othe manufacturers like Kraft and PepsiCo have their own symbols and criteria. Retailers this year will have the opportunity to implement one of two universal programs that claim to cover every product in every category.
Call it too much, call it confusing. Let’s just hope consumers get the message.
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!
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 carbon offsetting industry has enjoyed unregulated growth over the past couple of years, but it appears the party may soon be over.
In that time, a number of offset providers have been exposed for fraudulent acts ranging from substituting credits, to failure to follow through on eco-projects. The lack of oversight allowed firms to take advantage of consumers and even entire companies who sought to participate in the movement with good intentions. Now that problems have been uncovered, action is being taken to quickly button up guidelines and best practices in order to save the image of offsets as a legitimate method of reducing the carbon footprint.
In November The Climate Group, a London-based nonprofit, established the Voluntary Carbon Offset Standard, meant to serve as a rulebook for the industry. Then last month the Federal Trade Commission held a hearing on the issue — its first in a series of hearings focused on green marketing.
Momentum is continuing to build. Yesterday the Center for Resource Solutions and its widely recognized Green-e label announced the first voluntary certification program for carbon offsets sold at the retail level. This new process follows an offset through its entire lifecycle, making sure it’s properly labeled and that it actually does, say, provide for the planting of trees in Brazil’s rainforests.
“Consumers are going to want transparency. They’re going to want to know where their money went,” said Jeff Swenerton, spokesman for the Center for Resource Solutions.
A certification like this serves mainly as a marketing tool, but that shouldn’t downplay its significance. Consumers want assurances that the credits they’re purchasing at their local supermarket are truly going where they want them to. As these certification guidelines hit the market, it might be time for all businesses to check their offset programs against the standards, to see how they measure up. This is one time you don’t want to get caught with your plants down.
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.
With enough commitment, creativity and technical know-how, a retailer’s website can open up new pathways to customer loyalty. Wegman’s has long understood this, populating its site with recipes, an impressive product database, a dietician’s blog, and more.
Now the Northeastern retailer has gone a step further by redesigning the site and adding several new features, including new recipes and an interactive shopping list tool that helps customers choose products and then track them down to the aisle level. On the wellness side, Wegman’s has added employee testimonials; store manager Joe, for example, writes about his journey to becoming a triathlete. There are also additional links and a clean new layout under the website’s “wellness” tab.
Far too many retailers do the bare minimum when it comes to developing their website. The slogans, logos and pictures are all there, and often presented in an attractive format. But consumers aren’t interested in learning about the company (no offense, retailers). They want what they can use, and wellness information is often just what they’re looking for.
There are limitations, however. People won’t go to a supermarket website to read the latest health news, or browse through an encyclopedia of medical terms. They’ll go there to find what they perceive as the supermarket’s area of expertise: food. That’s why smart online ideas include healthy and delicious recipes, dieting advice from in-store dieticians and nutrition facts about products.
Every consumer is asking the same question of the companies they find on the web: What can you do for me today? Wegman’s has provided answers, and so should other retailers.
Animal welfare continues to be an emerging segment of the food business, and it’s one supermarket retailers are right to invest in. Consumer interest and activist efforts to expose some of the darker secrets on the processing side can have a big impact on the sales end — particularly when there are protesters outside stores, amendments introduced at annual stockholders meetings and other public awareness stunts.
Resist all you want. One look at those undercover videos made by activists in slaughterhouses and consumers start demanding change. The images are shocking because everyone has become so far removed from the ugly, but necessary, act of slaughtering an animal for food. Consumers just see esoteric, overwrapped packages of red steaks and pale chicken breasts. They’ve forgotten about the bloody processing these animals go through to become case ready.
Safeway this week made the important decision to change its policies regarding food animals. The nation’s third-largest supermarket chain had been in ongoing talks with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Humane Society of the United States to adopt more animal-friendly sourcing rules.
There are three significant changes: The chain is “actively looking” for ways to increase purchases from poultry processors using “controlled atmosphere stunning” techniques (we’ll let the link explain that one); pork suppliers who do not use sow-confining gestation crates; and egg vendors who offer cage-free eggs. Safeway is already offering products based on these policies in some regions, with more to be added as the policy phase-in continues.
These are important initiatives, not only because it’s what consumers want, but it’s just a better way of doing business.
With a 2007 growth rate of more than 20% and sales of roughly $4 billion, the organic category runs the constant risk of attracting scammers. Luckily there’s Craig’s List to keep them occupied — for now. Each participant in the food industry needs to take some responsibility for helping to ensure that the food, beverages and other products labeled “organic” are authentic. Fraud can occur at any stage of distribution.
Several initiatives currently underway are worth keeping an eye on. On the retail end, the National Cooperative Grocers Association has been testing a retailer-based organic fraud detection and prevention program launched last October. The aim is to figure out what methods and best practices food retailers can adopt to limit the incidence of fraudulently traded organic products and to increase the chances of early detection when it takes place within the retail supply chain. NCGA is hoping to be able to offer some sort of program by the middle of this year.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, researchers are attempting to develop protocols capable of detecting the presence of synthetic fertilizers in crops labeled organic. A new report published in the Journal of Environmental Quality described successful trials of a process called nitrogen isotopic discrimination to see if fertilizers not approved by the National Organic Program were used on a sweet pepper plant.
While these trials are being conducted, it might be a good time to think about ways your company is protecting organic integrity. Getting in-store departments and entire stores certified, or contracting with third-party certifiers is all good. These actions demonstrate good intentions.
But it may not be enough. Organics continues to attract more consumers, and generate millions more dollars in revenue. Those interested in taking ill-gotten profits are captivated as well.
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.
