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Now that it’s OK to eat tomatoes, let’s talk turkey: The most obvious losers in this most recent foodborne illness outbreak might be farmers — but the silent victims are supermarket retailers, who have to suffer the questions, the doubt and the loss of confidence expressed by shoppers.

Many supermarkets I visited during this ordeal were diligent in erecting signage at their tomato displays, in turn stating the known facts about the salmonella saintpaul outbreak, followed by reassurances that their suppliers had been cleared by the feds and that their products were safe.

Yet the displays stayed full - those big, beautiful summertime pyramids and stacked clamshells of red rounds, plum, Roma, Ugli, heirloom, local, grape and cherry tomatoes piled up in front of you like a giant Stop sign. Retailers did everything right to reassure their customers but the matter was completely out of their hands.

This being stuck in the middle is what makes the supermarket business so tough, particularly in dealing with commodities like produce, meat and seafood. Compared to five years ago, there are a lot more brand names in these categories, but bulk displays retain a level of anonymity that comes back to haunt retailers at a time like this. Consumers, seeing no label or name on the product, tend to fault the retailer who’s selling it.

This is why retailers should support any effort to develop new safety standards and implement a thorough traceback system. Hit with several big-time recalls recently, consumers are all for action, according to the AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults conducted last week. One shopper quoted in the survey said she had all but “given up” on supermarket produce and now patronizes farmers markets and like venues.

“I see the same farmers every single week,” she said. “You meet the people and you see where the [produce] is coming from.”

Produce buyers can make that claim — and it seems now that consumers want to, as well.

Label claims are proliferating at a rate never before seen in the food industry, and still consumers want more. According to the results of a recent survey by Deloitte Consulting, more than two out of five people say they don’t feel they have enough information about the food they’re consuming. They want to know country of origin, along with the healthfulness and safety of ingredients. And they say they’re willing to pay more for this.

From umbrella certifications like USDA Organic to very specific claims (“a great source of calcium!”), whole health labels have become a way to better match products with the needs and goals of shoppers. This has certainly resonated with consumers, and so it’s no surprise that they desire even further clarity.

But bear in mind that too much labeling can leave consumers feeling overwhelmed. They’re especially confused right now by all the green messaging that’s out there, studies show. And who can blame them? All those claims about nutrition and ethics and sustainability add another layer to the complex choices that people already face in the supermarket.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to diminish the importance of transparency in the food system. Today’s consumer wants and deserves detailed product information. In working to accomplish this, however, the labeling emphasis shouldn’t be on “more” but, rather, “smarter.”

We’ve already touched on Wal-Mart’s sustainability drive a couple times since starting this blog last November, and we certainly hate to be repetitive. But given the company’s industry clout and the rate at which they’re rolling out these initiatives lately, the subject deserves to be revisited.

Just yesterday, the Bentonville retailer announced it would start sourcing wood for its products from sustainable, certified sources. Teaming up with the World Wildlife Fund, Wal-Mart will conduct a yearlong survey of its supply chain, then start weeding out anything that involves unscrupulous or environmentally destructive harvesting practices. The company estimates that it will take five years to transition everything over to these standards.

Barely pausing for a breath, Wal-Mart then today announced a new line of sustainable, traceable jewelry. Customers who buy anything from the Love, Earth collection can go online and track their purchase back to the mine where it originated, and also find out about the supplier’s labor and environmental practices. Wal-Mart hopes to make this a trend in its jewelry business, aiming to hold 10 percent of its offerings to sustainable standards by 2010.

There’s more, of course. Wal-Mart is also increasing its selection of local produce, sourcing more organic cotton, transitioning to 100% sustainable seafood, and selling only hormone-free milk. Among other things.

In making this commitment to ethical, eco-friendly retailing, Wal-Mart has seemingly become a gentler giant. It’s unclear whether this comes out of genuine conviction, or whether the company’s massive growth of years past backed it into a corner. Wal-Mart did garner a considerable amount of animosity on its way to the top, after all. It also remains to be seen how effective these measures will actually be within the company’s supply chain.

What is clear, however, is that these sustainable initiatives send ripples through the supermarket industry. Wal-Mart has the power to alter the supply chain and influence fellow retailers, and that could end up being a very good thing for this world.

High food prices have pushed people — and especially health-conscious people — to creative lengths lately. They’re growing their own food. They’re cooking at home. They’re shopping at farmer’s markets, co-ops, and even buying into their local farm. When they are actually in the supermarket, they’re often trading down to private label and other lower cost goods.

Given all this, it’s understandable that retailers would want to focus on value instead of health and wellness, where many products come at a premium price. Some of the more popular marketing campaigns lately include how to stretch stimulus checks and get the most bang per basket.

But consumers are as focused as ever on healthful shopping. In fact, they’re arguably more concerned than ever during these lean times, especially with medical costs being what they are in this country. Just scan the food blogs and news sites and you’ll see what I mean: service pieces on how to eat healthy on a budget, musings about the fate of organic foods, and stories galore about pricing trends.

What shoppers are starting to forget — and what retailers shouldn’t let them forget — is that good nutrition and value can go hand in hand at the supermarket. Fresh foods and meat come at a variety of price points, and resourceful consumers can use them to cook up great meals that become great leftovers. It’s also efficient to buy food that’s local and in season. Farmers markets are being promoted for this reason, but supermarkets are a good source for these things as well. Let’s also not forget about healthy private label products, which are starting to take up more and more shelf space.

As someone who’s trying to eat healthy on a (increasingly strained) budget, I can think of a few things I’d like to see more of in stores. Healthy recipe ideas would top the list, and so would weekly deals (see FreshDirect’s Healthy Mondays promotion). I’m sure retailers can think of a few more.

Very few people out there have the power to change the way millions of Americans eat. The government is one. So is Oprah. But for the thinking person, there’s Michael Pollan. And, since we like to think of ourselves as a thinking person’s blog, we were estatic when we heard one of our veteran SN reporters, Roseanne Harper, was this week able to catch the author and Berkeley professor on the phone while he was packing for vacation. They spoke for more than 20 minutes, which isn’t a surprise to us here. With her endearing West Virginia accent, Roseanne could delay the departure of Air Force One with a casual query about a cockpit dial.

SN: What’s your relationship like with the supermarket industry right now?

Pollan: I had an inquiry [recently] from the Grocery Manufacturers of America. Would I be willing to speak at one of their conventions? I don’t know if that will happen. I would be happy to engage with them. I think it’s important to engage with people you’ve been critical of, and supermarkets aren’t wedded to any particular kind of food. Look, if the consumer says, “Listen we want local food or we want grass-fed food” [supermarkets] will sell it.

SN: Your last two books, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food,” certainly raised some eyebrows among consumers and food retailers alike.

Pollan: In the research, there were plenty of surprises, like discovering so much in the supermarket is made out of corn; that organic is much more industrialized than people think.

Organic milk comes from feedlots that are indistinguishable from conventional feedlots — not always, but very often…Things like that were very surprising.

SN: [laughs] Any hate mail?

Pollan: No, I haven’t had any critical letters from grocery people. I have not heard as much from industry as I had expected. I don’t think they’re reading! But other responses surprised me.[There are a] number of people who told me these books have changed their life, and how they shop, how they eat. I was flabbergasted by that! And I hear it over and over again.

SN: But the industry is listening to you, and them, in some ways. Some of what you talk about in your books is already happening.

Pollan: I’m happy to engage with them and hopefully push them in what I think is the right direction. The supermarket shopper is changing. I think if you go to farmers markets, you see a new shopper emerging and I think supermarkets have to take account of that person or he or she will abandon the supermarket. There is so much more happening than exchanging money for food.

SN: How are supermarkets keeping these customers who are demanding more?

Pollan: Some supermarkets are experimenting with allowing farmers markets in the parking lot. There is a movement in this country to reform the food system and I’ve been the beneficiary of that in many way. That movement has not had a manifesto; for a lot of people, they see my book as that manifesto… along with [others].

SN: Tell us where you see the all this animal welfare activity fitting into the overall wellness movment.

Pollan: The humane animal treatment is a real issue for me and I think increasingly it is for consumers. It’s not easy to justify on moral or ethical grounds, the way we raise animals, but I think that’s going to change. I think cage-free eggs will be the standard within a couple of years. I think sow crates will be eliminated because right now sows live in crates for most of their lives that are even too small to turn around in. The more people learn about these things, the more they want a different product.

There’s never been any doubt about the sweetness of stevia: The extract alone can be up to 300 times as powerful than regular sugar. It’s noncaloric, and that’s why, after generations, this native Paraguyan herb is of such interest right now.

What is in doubt is the reaction of federal regulators when stevia starts showing up on food ingredient lists, because the United States is one of a handful of countries that classifies stevia a dietary supplement, and therefore subject to full regulation.

Two small companies are already clearing new territory: Blue California and Wisdom Natural Brands have have “self-affirmed” their stevia-based sweeteners as GRAS - Generally Recognized as Safe. That’s a designation usually granted only by agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA — through the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act — allows stevia to be sold legally in the United States, but only as a dietary supplement. It’s already in plenty of drinks, teas and other items, labeled as “dietary supplements.” What everyone wants now is for the FDA to loosen up a little and simply allow stevia to be called a “sweetener” like high fructose corn syrup, or sugar.

Blue California and Wisdom Natural Brands (makers of the SweetLeaf brand pictured left) are pushing the envelope for another reason. They’re facing big-time competition. Coke and Cargill, who have been jointly investigating the herb’s properties, this week set up a large staffed display in New York City touting Truvia, the brand-name sweetener developed by their stevia research. Consumers visiting the display areas receive background information and history on stevia, its safety properties and even get to taste some.

No matter what happens, watch for the FDA to start moving quickly on getting stevia’s status as GRAS approved in a more timely manner. Not only are bigger companies pushing for it, consumers who’ve tasted the new sweeteners will likely be joining the chorus of those demanding a new, all-natural sugar alternative.

In a poll conducted last year by the World Society for the Protection of Animals, 58% of consumers said it’s important to them that supermarkets stock humanely labeled food. That’s a lot of consumers who are — or would like to be — compassionate carnivores. Retailers like Safeway and Whole Foods, both of which recently updated their animal welfare guidelines, have tuned in to the trend. Same with many restaurants, including fast-casual chain Chipotle, whose sales have gone gangbusters since they started selling humanely raised meat from Bell & Evans, Niman Ranch and others.

Many supermarkets have started selling cage-free eggs, free-range chicken and beef, and other selections that make a specific humane treatment claim. Some have also begun sourcing meats verified by humane advocacy organizations, like the American Humane Association’s “American Humane Certified” label.

Acknowledging this popularity, the WSPA recently ranked the top 25 supermarket chains on their availability of humanely labeled foods. Whole Foods came out on top, nearly doubling the score of the runner-up company, Wegmans Food Markets. Also scoring high were Harris Teeter, Kroger, and — in a bit of vindication for its recent seafood snub from Greenpeace — Publix.

The WSPA based its rankings not only on the number of humanely labeled foods carried, but the integrity of the labels: How many aspects of animal care were covered? Were the standards verified by a third party? Cage free, free range and grass fed labels were dubbed “A Good Start;” pasture raised and USDA organic were classified as “Even Better;” and third-party certifications were “The Best.”

This sort of system could be helpful for consumers, but more than anything it highlights just how fractious and confusing such labeling is. Consumers are prepared to pay a premium for animal welfare, but how do they choose between pasture raised, free range and Certified Humane? Can they even parse their values in such a fashion?

This is definitely something for supermarkets to ponder. In the meantime, they need to back everything up with transparent marketing and education.

For supermarket executives, health and wellness is synonymous with employee benefits. To wit:

-Safeway president and CEO Steven Burd has made health care one of his signature issues. He’s even talking about a plan to use elements of the chain’s consumer-oriented FoodFlex system in the company employee health plan by 2009.

“If someone wants to opt in to demonstrate a nutritious lifestyle, I think we’ll be the first company to grant premium reductions for that,” he said.

-After years of criticism, Wal-Mart has been busy trying to improve the way it insures its 1.4 million U.S. associates. On February 7th, the mega-retailer launched a multi-faceted campaign called “Better Health Care Together.” The announcement includes four “common sense” principles for achieving a new American health care system by 2012, one of which is the ability for consumers to take more responsibility and control over their own health care.

There are other examples out there, and as one of the highest expenses in any company’s operating budget, you can bet there will be more. Just this week, Hannaford Bros. signed on with RedBrick Health, a health services company that is spearheading a new area of employee healthcare called Consumer-Owned Health.

Under the Hannaford program, 2,000 company associates who are already enrolled in a health plan will receive augmented support from RedBrick as a way of transitioning them to to take a more active role n their health (read: preventative measures). In this role, RedBrick Health guides employees through plan selection, consolidates multiple sources of health plan data, provides uniform reporting. It’s expected that this kind of third-party intervention will save Hannaford big bucks down the road.

This is the next generation of health care, and the supermarket industry — with its army of unskilled, hourly wage earners — is among the first to glimpse it; likewise, companies have the chance to shape policy that’s still in not set in stone. Time to get to it.

In what the tabloids might call an “A-Salt,” or perhaps a “Shakedown,” several cities in England have begun dispensing new five-hole saltshakers to area restaurants in the hopes of reducing people’s sodium consumption. The current widely used model has 17 holes in it, so if you go strictly by the math, patrons could end up shaking out a third of what they normally do.

Officials there certainly think it’s a breakthrough. The Food Standards Agency — a watchdog group established by the government — has nominated the new saltshakers for a “Food Champions Award.”

But does rationing like this really work? Throwing salt on fries (or “chips”, in this case) isn’t an exact science, so people could be just as happy with less. Critics, however, say diners will pour on the salt no matter how many shakes it takes. To draw a parallel with something that’s more familiar to consumers on this side of the pond, look at portion-control products. Over the past couple years, there’s been an explosion of 100-calorie packs in everything from chips to ice cream. These are supposed to put a consumption cap on rich foods, but some sources say they’re actually doing the opposite. A recent study from the Journal of Consumer Research showed people ate 46.1 grams of potato chips from portion-control bags, and only 23.5 from large bags.

Undoubtedly, though, there are those who will stick to the smaller-size regimen. Just like there will always be those who choose fresh produce and low-fat offerings, and those who opt for the candy aisle. Supermarkets shouldn’t force consumers into fewer shakes or smaller portions. Rather, they should continue to offer a variety of healthy products, then let the shopper choose.

I don’t want to date myself by making the well-worn reference to President George Bush the Elder and his opinion of broccoli. So, I’ll just say this: Put plenty of broccoli in your Fourth of July salads…. Heck, put broccoli in everything, especially if you’re a guy.

A new study out purportedly demonstrates just how this cruciferous vegetable fights cancer — a compound called isothiocyanate is believed to activate both genes that fight cancer, and shut off those that promote tumor growth. The dual action makes broccoli and its cousins — brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, rocket or arugula, watercress and horse radish, among others — twice as powerful in fighting cancer.

For the British study, 24 men with a high risk for prostate cancer were split into two groups. Half of them ate four extra servings of broccoli a week, while the others ate peas. Tissue samples taken during the year-long study showed that men who ate broccoli showed hundreds of changes in genes known to play a role in fighting cancer.

What makes broccoli king is that it contains a particularly powerful type of isothiocyanate called sulforaphane. It really seems to kick the butt-cells of prostate cancer.

Anyway, this is just another conclusion supporting Mom’s admonition to “Eat your vegetables.” In the words of one of the researchers here, now we’re learning why we should be eating them. Hear that, George?