The economy again, Del Monte and other news

Will consumers have a backlash against what they sense as misuse of the term locally grown? USA Today explores the topic in one of the news items below I snatched from the Web.

Locally grown sounds great but what does it mean? From USA Today:

Just how do some retailers define locally grown?

• Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest retailer, considers anything local if it's grown in the same state as it's sold, even if that's a state as big as Texas and the food comes from a farm half the size of Manhattan, as in the case of the 7,000-acre Ham Produce in North Carolina.

• Whole Foods, the biggest retailer of natural and organic foods, considers local to be anything produced within seven hours of one of its stores. The retailer says most local producers are within 200 miles of a store.

• Seattle's PCC Natural Markets considers local to be anything from Washington, Oregon and southern British Columbia.

US stocks decline as Fed rate cut fails to ease concerns From Bloomberg:

Equities around the world tumbled this month, wiping out more than $12 trillion of market value, after money markets froze, banks' credit losses grew and economic growth weakened. All 48 of the developed and emerging markets tracked by MSCI Inc. have declined in 2008, with 20 losing at least half.

One on one with Roubini

GHARIB: Professor Roubini, who or what is the major culprit of this financial crisis?

ROUBINI: First of all the Fed kept interest rates too low for too long and created the housing bubble. Secondly the Fed and the other regulators were asleep at the wheel and allowed all these toxic mortgages to be created without controlling it. Three, there was plenty of greed and excessive risk taking on Wall Street. And four, the rating agencies had major conflicts of interest because they were being paid by those that were supposed to be rating. So the blame is to be shared by many different culprits.

Every little helps as Tesco cuts sales target

SUPERMARKET giant Tesco has cut its sales targets for the first time in several years as it prepares for a difficult run.

Britain's biggest retailer is now budgeting for two per cent underlying sales growth in the UK instead of its usual three to four per cent.


Credit card losses sting banks

The August charge-off rate — the percentage of credit card loans written off as not being paid — spiked to 6.82% in August from 6.36% in July, Moody's Investors Service said earlier this month. Moody's added that the rate could rise to 7.5% by the end of 2009, above the peak of 7.1% in May 2003 after the last recession

Fresh Del Monte 3Qprofit falls but tops estimates

Del Monte saw strong growth in its banana sales, up 20 percent to $332.7 million as sales volume increased 5 percent in North America. Sales of gold pineapple were strong as well, up 13 percent in the quarter to $122.5 million.

Aldi: Grocer for the recession From Time:

The time appears ripe for deep-discounters, and Aldi is on an expansion tear. Last year, Aldi generated some $5.8 billion in U.S. sales, up from $5.3 billion in 2006, according to Supermarket News, an industry journal. It now has about 950 stores in 29 states and plans to open more than 100 stores in the next two years in Connecticut, Missouri and Texas. The company will have opened 100 new stores by the end of the year, double the number opened last year.


Wal Mart view: Big plans abroad: small U.S. stores

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it will continue emphasizing international expansion, particularly in emerging markets such as Brazil, as it trims U.S. growth, company officials said on Tuesday.

A day after declaring that it will curtail openings of its traditional U.S. stores and focus more on remodeling existing locations, the world's largest retailer by sales laid out a vision for growth during the second half of a two-day conference with investment analysts.

Revived grocery union takes aim at Fresh & Easy

Now, Fresh & Easy says it will recognize the employees as part of a bargaining unit only if they vote to become union members in "government-supervised secret-ballot elections." But its strategy might not work much beyond next year.

Labor leaders expect that if Barack Obama wins the presidency and the Democrats retain control of Congress, labor would gain passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. As proposed, it would allow union representation when a majority of employees signs cards requesting it and eliminate requirements for a National Labor Relations Board-supervised secret ballot.

Efforts grow to legalize a section of LA workforce

“The public doesn’t seem to know that we need immigrants,” he says, pointing out that incomers will take an increasing share of work as baby-boomers retire. “If we think we don’t need them then we won’t legalise them.”