Refresh

For the first 20 plus years of my career, I sat on the “buy side” of the desk. This was where I was able to take the skills I had honed over the years to create or simply approve items that I believed would sell. Some of the proposals were slightly risky due to a unique aspect, like the product name or packaging — or perhaps an ingredient or two. But for the most part these were potential mainstream items that I believed had legs.

Products came to my attention in several ways. Perhaps I already had seen it under its brand name at the competition or at a food show; or maybe I knew the manufacturer and worked with him to create something unique and different… but often these items were presented to me by someone not that different from me, especially the “now” me — the person who cold-called to tell me about some wonderful new item that my customers simply could not live without!

Who knew that I was going to either make or break this person’s day? I should have had a Harry Truman-esque, “Don’t call my boss, the buck stops here” sign on my desk because that is the power that a buyer wields.

These days, I’m sitting on the other side of the desk. I hock my wares to all sorts of retailers. I still am not 100% comfortable with the cold call and am having to train myself to realize that the word “No” doesn’t always mean no, but can be a simple dialogue starter (talk about creative ways of psyching myself up!). Other times, you have to simply take the abuse or aggression to make the sale, which is never easy. more…

There’s been a lot of talk lately about a new set of footprints being tracked through the house of Mankind. We can’t see them, but they leave just as big an impression as anything related to carbon.

Meet the water footprint, and large companies — from Anheuser-Busch to Wal-Mart — have taken steps to reduce the amount of H2O they use in production processes, transportation and administration.

“People are beginning to realize it’s all related, and that’s why I think water is coming up now, whenever people talk about things like carbon footprints,” said Kai Olson-Sawyer, program manager of H2O Conserve, one of several organizations working to publicize water conservation. I interviewed him for a story we’re working on for the next issue of SN Whole Health, and several links that retailers and other food industry pillars might find useful.

Overall, the news is good. consumptions is actually dropping. According to The Freedonia Group, companies consumed about 13 gallons of water per dollar of GDP in 2007, down from more than 16 gallons in 1997.

The flip side, naturally, is that there are more companies out there, and the growth is focused on geographical areas where water shortages tend to be an issue: the West, Mountain West, Southwest and Southeast. more…

It’s been a tough year for natural and organic products. Not as tough as it could be — but still tough. To offer just a snapshot: Earlier this year, The Nielsen Company reported that sales growth for organic was 24% in March of 2008, versus just 1% in March of 2009.

I’m reluctant to trust any indication that the clouds are lifting, no matter how hard Bernanke and the stock market try to reassure me. It’s like having a clown show up to a funeral — hey, as long as there are still hiring freezes and closings, I’ll keep my head in the sand, thankyouverymuch.

But I’d be lying down on the job if I didn’t report this, a sign that things might be looking up — for the natural and organic industry. According to a report from RBC Capital Markets, “growth rates in the natural/organic food category appear to have stabilized and might be showing some early signs of re-acceleration.” Re-acceleration would certainly be the right word, since the industry never really went into the red. Any growth from this point would be a revving of the engine.

The report noted that distributors like United Natural Foods, Hain Celestial and SunOpta had been showing promising signs. It also singled out Whole Foods, which has taken a battering lately, particularly in the ledger of public opinion after CEO John Mackey’s health care opus absurdum in the Wall Street Journal. Analyst Edward Aaron wrote that the natural and organic retailer could be back in fighting form in the near future, in part because competitors’ commitment to organics “appears to be wavering in some cases.” Inside sources at Wal-Mart, for one, say that the company isn’t happy with how its organic products have been performing. more…

From our “What Are They Thinking?” file: Kellogg’s is currently under fire for splashing a huge “Immunity” banner across its best-selling Rice Krispies brand just as parental concern over the H1N1 virus is reaching a feverish pitch.

“Now helps support your child’s immunity,” is the exact phrasing, along with a graphic touting that the cereal’s increased fortification with 25% of the daily values of antioxidants and nutrients like Vitamins A, B, C and E.

This is a cereal that still lists sugar as the second ingredient. Even more of an eyebrow-raiser is Rice Krispies’ companion Cocoa Krispies, which sports the same claim on its box. Cocoa Krispies also contains sugar, high fructose corn syrup and trans-fat, according to the ingredients panel. But ignore that. It’s fortified with vitamins to help ward off the child-killer swine flu.

For its part, Kellogg’s claims the fortification decision was made a year ago, well before the current flu scare. Knowing that recipe tinkering can be an involved process, I can’t quibble with that. However I do recall visiting Unilever’s corporate test kitchen right after the low-carb craze engulfed the country some years ago, when I got to taste low-carb versions of their best-selling salad dressings, mayonnaise and the like.

The executives I met with proudly announced that reformulating the products took the company a matter of weeks. I can’t imagine what’s so complicated about boosting vitamin percentages that it took the food scientists at Kellogg’s a year. more…

Organic is a regulated term and watchdog groups are actively watching to make sure producers and retailers alike don’t abuse this label. Recently, The Cornucopia Institute filed a formal complaint with the USDA’s organic program alleging that Target misled consumers into thinking some conventional food items it sells are organic.

In one example provided by the organization, Target nationally advertised Silk brand soymilk in newspapers with the term organic pictured on the carton’s label. But Silk manufacturer Dean Foods has shifted their products away from organics.

This is not the first time The Cornucopia Institute has targeted retailers. In 2006, the group filed complaints with federal and state regulators against Wal-Mart, also alleging misrepresentation of conventional food as organic with improper signage in their stores.

Surveys show the public is unclear about the difference between natural and organic, as well as related labels used in the wellness industry. That’s bad enough, but think about this: If the general public is unclear, your staff may be too. And where there’s confusion, there are often mistakes. For retailers, it’s especially important to remain vigilant.

Be sure employees understand the difference between organic products and those with natural claims, and emphasize the importance of accurate promotion — not only from the consumer perspective, but from a legal one, too.

USDA-approved organic labels first appeared on store shelves in October 2002. Use of the word organic became regulated, and producers that met certain standards were allowed to display the USDA Organic seal. more…

Every afternoon when the dismissal bell rang, we’d grab our empty lunchboxes and homework-heavy bookbags and politely obey the crossing guard before the magnet pulled on the pennies, nickels and dimes in our pockets and drew us irresistibly to the corner of Hudson Street and Duncan Avenue.

That’s where Al’s Market was located. Inside, Al presided over a whole counterful of candy, gum and trading cards. This was his rush hour, and he was always ready, sitting on an old stool in his ubiquitous white dress shirt and black suspenders, a friendly old guy who ran the tiny storefront with his wife, who would pop out of the back and help preside over the sudden tide of youngsters that would flood the old wooden boards and homemade fixtures, without fail, five days a week at 2:30 pm.

Al’s was small, outdated and old-fashioned (and not pictured here), but he sure knew how to merchandise to his primary customer: No category management best practices or planograms here. Al seemed intuitively to know exactly where to place the candy and snacks: Right at second-grade height. Good ‘n Plenty, Snickers, Chunky and for the truly sugar-deprived, Charleston Chew, a seemingly foot-long bar of chocolate and nougat that was the length of a band practice drumstick. There were also Topps baseball cards and Wacky Packs, too. And bags of chips and grape Nehi and RC Cola in a small reach-in cooler.

Those are fond memories. It’s likely that all of us had a corner store to look forward to after a grueling day of multiplication tables and kickball, right? But things seem to have taken an ominous turn somewhere. A new report out shows that children in Philadelphia who attended public schools and shopped at corner stores before or after school purchased almost 360 calories of foods and beverages per visit. According to the study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “Chips, candy and sugar-sweetened beverages were the most frequently purchased items. This is the first study to document both what foods and beverages children purchased in local corner stores on their way to and from school, and the nutritional content of those items.” more…

A dispatch from Julie Gallagher, who edits the Center Store/Beverage section in Supermarket News, and is a regular contributor to our at-show blog, Total Access:

At this year’s Kosherfest a panel of supermarket buyers and specialty distributors bestowed best-in-show honors on Manhattan-based Luck Chen for its heat-and-serve noodle bowls.

What may have been viewed as a major coup in the past, given the product’s ethnic roots, is now par for the course. Especially considering that U.S. buyers have 120,000 kosher products to choose from, four in ten supermarket items are kosher and about 5,000 new foods introduced so far this year, have been, you guessed it, kosher.

The designation has become so mainstream that as I perused the show floor yesterday I had to remind myself of the common thread tying such varied products together. Take for instance Organic Batter Blasters, which is pancake batter in a whip cream can suitable for “lightening fast breakfasts on the go.” Its maker seems to have covered several bases here given the product’s appeal to convenience-seekers, kosher keepers and organic consumers. It remains to be seen how organic shoppers will react to the pressurized can.

Then there is a new microwavable treat from Spain: tunafish pizza in a an ice cream cone-shaped crust touted as “the new way of eating pizza.” Don’t worry about balancing the cone for heating, apparently its box is microwavable too.

The makers of Vinegar Splash Smart Fries air-popped potato sticks were also on hand. The 110-calorie-per-serving treats contain 80% less fat than potato chips, and are free of cholesterol, sugar and trans fat.

Also featured at the show was Sheer Bliss All Natural Gourmet Pomegranate ice cream in a tin can. Its package helps it maintain its integrity better than a carton could, according to its enthusiastic promoter. Publix and Whole Foods are among the retailers who’ve picked up the product.

The vast majority of foods found in the supermarket contain genetically modified ingredients. That’s a fact many farmers and agribusiness interests can be proud of — but for consumers, not so much. According to recent polls, 53% say they would not buy food if they knew it was genetically modified, while 87% say they want GMO-containing items to be properly labeled.

Assuming shoppers’ food knowledge continues to evolve as it has, it would appear the industry has set itself up for a massive backlash. Right? In reality, it seems people are mostly — as the 87% figure indicates — anxious for some transparency on the issue.

And that’s where the Non GMO Project comes in. Up to this point, labeling has been a scattershot affair. Organic certification is supposed to factor out GMO use, but recent science has shown it’s not doing the job. To fill the gap, hundreds of natural and organic manufacturers have started slapping their own “GMO-Free” labels on their products. But there’s no uniform standard to verify the integrity of these claims.

The Non GMO Project, which counts many of the major players in the natural and organic industry among its members, has established the first-ever voluntary standard to signify products that contain no GM ingredients. more…

Three days after the Food and Drug Administration notified the food industry that it would begin reviewing all nutrition labeling programs, the much-maligned Smart Choices program announced it would “voluntarily postpone operations and not encourage wider use of the logo” for the time being.

Critics of Smart Choices, who included Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, said the program’s nutritional criteria was too lenient, allowing products like Froot Loops cereal and the popcorn-based Cracker Jack snack to qualify for the green checkmarked logo.

In a written statement, posted in the media section of the Smart Choices website, Mike Hughes, program chairman and vice president for science and public policy at the Keystone Center, said he welcomes FDA’s interest in developing uniform front-of-package and shelf-labeling criteria.

“The Smart Choices Program shares that exact goal, and was designed to provide a voluntary front-of-package labeling program that could promote informed food choices and help consumers construct healthier diets. We continue to believe the Smart Choices Program is an important step in the right direction,” he wrote.

Smart Choices was unveiled earlier this year by a group that includes the largest U.S. food manufacturers — Kellogg’s, General Mills, Kraft Foods, among others. more…

A new report out from researchers at Baylor College of Medicine finds that the prevalence of lactose intolerance may be far lower than previously estimated.

Sound familiar? You bet it does. This past summer, we reported on the still-booming gluten-free category, noting that the number of Americans who actually suffer from gluten intolerance is but a fraction of the total population using GF products.

“The bulk of the people following the diet don’t have celiac disease but some form of gluten sensitivity,” is what Cynthia Kupper, executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group, told me at the time. ”When they take gluten out of their diet, they tend to feel better.”

The lactose study, which used data from a national sample of three ethnic groups, reveals a similar pattern. The overall prevalence rate of self-reported lactose intolerance is 12%. Within that number, 7.7% of European Americans, 10.1% of Hispanic Americans and 19.5% of African Americans consider themselves lactose intolerant.

Now, here’s the kicker: The new findings, published in the most recent issue of Nutrition Today, indicate that previous estimates of lactose intolerance incidence may be overestimated by a wide margin. Previous studies have found it affects approximately 15% of European Americans, 50% of Mexican Americans and 80% of African Americans. more…