Where's the remote?

The guy that made possible the couch potato has died in Idaho. It sounds too ironic to be true, but this story asks us to "hit the mute button for a moment of silence: the co-inventor of the TV remote has died."

Robert Adler was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime. In a May 2004 interview with the Associated Press, Adler recalled being among two dozen engineers at Zenith given the mission to find a new way for television viewers to change channels without getting out of their chairs or tripping over a cable.
But he downplayed his role when asked if he felt his invention helped raise a new generation of couch potatoes. "People ask me all the time - 'Don't you feel guilty for it?' And I say that's ridiculous," he said. "It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."

TK: Adler's work was not done; he never solved the problem of the remote disappearing between couch cushions, did he?

Experience retailing

Cooking class, singles night, wine tasting....
Retailers such as Wild Oats and Whole Foods try to be much more than the local supermarket, and this feature story from Maine shows several ways they get it done.

Grocery shopping is a chore for many people; their priority is speed and price. Others see a trip to the supermarket as an experience. Tempting foods and recipes to ponder. Healthier ways to eat. Purchases that help form relationships between local growers and the community. It's likely that the thousands of people who mobbed the sneak preview tour and grand opening last week of the new Whole Foods Market in Portland fit into the latter category. These folks also are apt to eat in the store's trattoria or sushi bar, attend a cooking or nutrition class, or meet in the community room. What's more, while only 15 percent or so of shoppers are loyal to a single store, those customers generate between 55 percent and 75 percent of sales, according to a study cited by the Food Marketing Institute.

TK: Steve Lutz of The Perishables Group says the company will be releasing a big organics study about the time of FMI and United. Lutz said that one of the central points of focus is understanding the differences in behavior between light and heavy users. How can traditional supermarkets take light organic users and turn them to heavy users? What do traditional supermarkets have to do to compete with Whole Foods and Wild Oats? Demographics of each store location are a key indicator in determining potential of organic sales, Lutz said. Perhaps cooking class and singles night help, too.

Chilean raisins, the new grapes?

That's the premise of this feature in The Santiago Times, which describes the appeal of the dried fruit.

From the story:

With 2006 generally recognized as a poor year for Chilean table grapes because of competitive markets and a low valued US$, some producers are looking to try their hand in raisin production. For table grape farmers in Chile, excess production and low prices have made it difficult to shift into other products. For this reason, some farmers are considering dedicating all their grapevines to raisin production.José Olmedo produced table grapes in Region V until 1990, when he began to produce raisins exclusively. He says he can never lose while he continues to produce raisins. “While with grapes there was always the risk that I could lose money, I’m always sure of earning something with raisins. Not very much, but something.

TK; Don't worry too much about Chilean fresh grapes fading away anytime soon. Season to date exports to the U.S. through Feb. 10 were 400.9 million pounds, up 23% from year-ago levels.

Dean Florez, deal-maker

The California state senator, a Democrat from Shafter, has been in the headlines on a fairly regular basis, often criticizing industry efforts to implement the leafy greens marketing agreement. Here is a story that looks at his desire for compromise with the industry.
From the Salinas Californian:

Pronouncing himself dissatisfied with the ag industry's efforts to regulate itself, Florez has introduced legislation for state regulation of leafy greens. Learning Friday, however, that he faces a likely veto by the governor even if he succeeded in winning legislative approval for his proposal, Florez said he's now considering the idea of a "hybrid commission" - an independent panel to ensure food safety - that combines his goals with some aspects of an industry leafy-greens marketing agreement that promises improved food-safety practices.'

TK: Florez, an investment banker by background, said he out to make a deal with the industry. Just how that would benefit the industry is not clear to me. The threat of a veto may have neutralized his potential influence, but I'm sure we will continue to see Dean Florez in the news.

Meanwhile, the first meeting of the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement is set for Friday Feb. 23 in Woodland. Serious heavy lifting is on tap; six hours were allotted for the meeting. Among the agenda items, according to the CDFA:

Discussion of minor amendments to marketing agreement
Discussion of contracts for management and inspection
Establishment of first year assessment rate and preliminary budget
Establishment of committees
Discussion and possible acceptance of industry metrics

Wal-Mart as economic engine

Remember all the anecdotal stories about Wal-Mart coming into a town and ending the dreams of a family owned hardware store, a fabric store, etc.? Now Wal-Mart has taken that concept and is standing it on its head. Here is a report that suggests Wal-Mart can help energize a depressed area of Indianapolis:

The chain builds a store, then pumps resources and money into surrounding local businesses. The Indianapolis Supercenter will go up near the old Builder's Square at 46th and Lafayette Road.
The nation's biggest retailer and state's largest employer, Wal-Mart has designated the Lafayette Square store part of its 'Jobs and Opportunities Initiative.'
"We'll fund local business development, we'll host seminars working with small communities and small businesses and we'll teach them how to leverage the benefits a new Wal-Mart Store can bring to the community," said Menzer.

And amazingly, some small businesses say it is all good.

"It will be great. It will help my business," said Hiren Patel, owner of Patel Brothers Grocery store. Patel hopes the new store will help attract more customers to his year old grocery, which specializes in Indian cuisine.

TK: There is never total approval for Wal-Mart in anything they do, and this is no exception. One grocery store merchant in the depressed area said Wal-Mart will likely shut him down.

RFID and reefers

Putting active RFID tags on truck containers is the brainchild of the trucking company profiled in a computer magazine here.
From Computerworld:

While containers can be monitored while in ships and trains, historically, they vanish into black holes when being trucked on highways, says Rick Kessler, CIO of Horizon Lines and its IT subsidiary, Horizon Services Group. To overcome the lack of highway readers, the company placed so-called active RFID tags, which use an internal power source to contact readers, on 5100 containers. The active tags have a range of about 90m and can be read while moving at speeds of up 120 km/h. Horizon officials won’t disclose the amount of savings generated by the new process, but notes that it permits a shipper to know the exact location of a load, the time of delivery, and allow it to schedule its operations more precisely and plan for any exceptions, delays or high priority movements.
The Horizon Services Group, he says, is studying methods for deploying an RFID reader network on the highway system in the US.

TK: Here is a piece about Canadian consumer acceptance of RFID in grocery stores, and read this story to see how RFIDs may one day be in all of us. I can't say I'm thrilled.

Apple wax and consumer awareness

As I work on an update on fresh cut salad sales, I was visiting yesterday with Steve Lutz of The Perishables Group. As we talked about whether the sales slide in packaged salads and packaged spinach reflects a change in consumer behavior, he brought up the case of wax on apples.

"There is a huge difference between consumer awareness and action," Lutz told me. "It can have a zero impact on behavior." He recalled from his days at the Washington Apple Commission when surveys showed a high level of awareness of wax on apples. In fact, some consumers were "concerned" about wax on apples.
But the correlation of the issue at store level showed that consumers in fact preferred waxed apples over unwaxed apples. They would buy more waxed apples than unwaxed apples if given the choice.

Lutz cautions against drawing too many conclusions about consumer behavior relating to bagged salad and bagged spinach until more time is passed. How much of the current decline in sales is attributable to demand and how much is related to supply? We may be better to tell in a few months, he believes.

Related to consumer confidence, here is a story about how consumers are returning to a Houston restaurant where patrons were possibly exposed to Hepatitis A.

From the story comes a quote from a trusting soul:

“My mom had warned me that there was a problem about a week ago, I guess, but I figured it was probably a pretty safe bet since it was on the news and in the paper that they probably have everything cleaned up by now,” diner Paige Gutierrez said.

TK: The chicken of demand or the egg of supply? In any case, The Perishables Group has figures that show bagged spinach sales for the 19 weeks ending Jan. 20 were down 47.8% compared with the same period a year ago.

Bigger than you imagined

The wild pig population of California is bigger than you thought possible, says this recent story from Western Farm Press. I must say I've never given a passing thought to the existence of wild pigs in California until the E. coli aftermath implicated the pests as possible sources of the pathogen. I remember a visit in Hawaii last year with Bob Hamilton of Hula Brothers Inc., when he said wild pigs there will sometimes stand on their hind legs to reach for lychees, longans and other tropical fruit. Fencing and more lethal measures were important to control the pigs there. A little from the Farm Press story:

Wild pigs have long been considered a threat to native species and especially native plants in California, Sweitzer says, “Unless we find better ways to manage wild pigs, California will risk losing many of its unique plants and animals. Equally important, agricultural losses might become enormously costly if wastes from wild pigs spread into croplands.”
Sweitzer and his research team compiled a database of more than 70,000 wild pig harvest locations, which they used to determine the pace of range expansion by the species in California over the last 13 years. Preliminary results indicate they expanded their range by more than 7,000 square miles between 1992 and 2004.

TK: Food safety professor Doug Powell of K-State says he has heard a lot about "rampaging pigs" and perhaps not enough focus on soil amendments and other meatier food safety issues that growers can control. But we must give the pigs their due.