National Retail Report - Jan. 25

Here is the summary from the USDA's National Retail Report from Jan. 25

Advertised Prices for Fruits & Vegetables at Major Retail Supermarket Outlets 01/19 to 01/31

Fruit Ads Rebound
Ads continued to feature a variety of themes this week. There were some lingering ads promoting healthful eating. Breakfast food items such as cereals, oatmeal, milk, and blueberries were featured heavily across the nation. The number of football and “big game” ads increased and focused mainly on snack food items. By far, though, most retailers were featuring meat items as their main attractions. There were an abundance of 10 for $10 ads nationwide as well. Produce ad activity increased roughly 6 percent this week and can be attributed to a 15 percent increase in activity on fruit ads. The top 5 featured items this week were all imported fruit items and included: peaches, blueberries, nectarines, grapes, and mangoes. Blueberries were also often featured in package sizes larger than the 4.4 oz package reported here. Vegetable activity, however, declined about 5 percent. Other features in the produce and seasonal areas were quite varied. Citrus was still being featured quite often throughout the country. The most prevalent citrus ads were for bagged navel oranges, bagged grapefruit, Cara Cara oranges, tangerines, and tangelos. There were also a few ads noted for Meyer lemons. Kiwi ads, both conventional and organic, were noted more often than usual. Cut flowers and small potted flowers such as tulips and daffodils were noted
occasionally.

Fruits as Percentage of Total Fruit Ads - January 25, 2008
Grapefruit, red 4%
Limes 1%
Honeydew 2%
Lemons 0%
Apples, red delicious 4%
Watermelon, mini 1%
Strawberries 4%
Plums 4%
Pineapple 5%
Peaches 12%
Pears, Bartlett 0%
Oranges, navel 5%
Mangoes 8%
Nectarines, yellow flesh 10%
Watermelon, seedless 0%
Cherries 5%
Clementines 1%
Grapes, green/red 10%
Cantaloupe 4%
Avocadoes, hass 4%
Bananas 2%
Bananas, organic 2%
Blueberries 11%




Vegetables as Percentage of Total Vegetable Ads January 25, 2008
Tomatoes 4%
Tomatoes, grape 6%
Asparagus 3%
Tomatoes, grape organic 1%
Tomatoes, organic 0%
Tomatoes on the vine 2%
Squash, zucchini 1%
Sweet Potatoes 2%
Potatoes, russet 9%
Peppers, bell red 10%
Peppers, bell green 3%
Onions, sweet 10%
Mushrooms, white 6%
Onions, yellow 6%
Corn 2%
Celery 3%
Cucumbers 3%
Lettuce, iceberg 3%
Lettuce, romaine 2%
Carrots, baby organic 5%
Broccoli 5%
Broccoli, organic 1%
Cabbage 6%
Carrots, baby 8%
Beans, round green 1%

Scenes from an Iraq market

These pictures are passed along by a friend in the Army, a reminder that commerce and agriculture in Iraq are reemerging, despite the challenges.

King George and Mexican trucks

There is a lot of discontent in some quarters about the Cross Border Truck Safety Inspection Program. Though Congress appeared to end funding for the program in an omnibus budget bill, the Administration said the legislative language wasn't clear and has not cut off funding for the program. It seems Mexican trucking interests are feeling pretty good about the pilot program, according to a Jan. 22 USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report.
From the USDA translation of a Mexican press account:

Mexican transportation companies have taken advantage of the pilot stage of the Cross Border Truck Safety Inspection Program. According to the Mexican Ministry of transportation, 83 companies have signed up for the Program, out of which 72 have been inspected and approved, and 13 are already operating in the United States with 58 trucks. Meanwhile, 22 U.S. trucking companies have registered, seven have been inspected and approved, and five are operating in Mexico with 45 units. Almost 2,000 “crossings” have been registered during the four month period since the pilot program started. Authorities will meet next September to evaluate the one year test program and determine whether the program will be cancelled or continued. The GOM is optimistic on continuing the program.

Is it good to be Burger King?

Tom Philpott gives us this post today at Gristmill, a blog that describes itself as "leafy green commentary." Philpott covered the speech of Eric Schlosser - author of Fast Food Nation - at Eco-Farm, the annual conference held by the Ecological Farming Association of California. Philpott writes:

Organized by the heroic Coalition of Immokolee Workers, tomato pickers had managed to cajole major tomato buyers Taco Bell and McDonald's to agree to pay an extra penny a pound for tomatoes -- enough to double the wages of workers.

But Burger King has refused to go along with the hike, a move that threatened to scotch the deal. By holding back on that penny per pound, Schlosser reports, Burger King saves itself $250,000 per year -- a rounding error compared to annual profits, and a fraction on a fast-food CEO's annual pay.

Schlosser himself recently brought that story to broad public attention with an op-ed in The New York Times. And while he didn't mention it in his speech, it was almost surely his high-profile expose that inspired Bernie Sanders, Ted Kennedy, and other senators to get involved, pressuring Burger King to relent. Schlosser predicted that to get the senators off its back, Burger King would likely soon pay the extra penny.

TK: Should Burger King pay the extra penny a pound for tomatoes? Here is a link to an interesting Web site that discusses the history and effectiveness of boycotts. From the site, about the history of boycotts:

The word "boycott" is of much more recent origin than the act of boycotting. Many British absentee landowners in late 19th century Ireland took advantage of famine conditions in Ireland to evict tenants from their property and to lower wages for field work. One of the worst offenders was Captain Charles Boycott (1832-1897), estate manager of the Irish lands of the British Third Earl of Erne. In 1880, Boycott evicted undesirable tenants from the Earl's estates and paid laborers only half the day wage for field work. An American journalist in Ireland and an Irish priest came up with a fitting word to describe the Irish Land League's tactic of encouraging the peasantry to stop working and producing for oppressive landlords, coining the term "boycotting." Irish peasants "boycotted" the estates of absentee Earl of Erne, forcing Charles Boycott to harvest the crops. The boycott was extended further: no merchant would service the Boycott family, and their servants disappeared. This collective social and economic ostracism forced Boycott to stop his abusive tactics.

The example of the Irish Land League and the rise of organized labor in the United States encouraged the use of boycotts as never before. Hitherto the most famous "boycott" in the U.S., before the word was invented, was in 1765, to protest the Stamp Act. As a result, Parliament repealed the act.

TK: What makes a boycott effective? From the Web site:

Most boycotts deliver less than they set out to achieve, though, and as a mechanism for change they have a very spotted record. Financially, boycotts have had negligible impact on their targets, according to a 1997 study published in the Journal of Business Research. Some of the least successful boycotts, now all but abandoned in the United States, have been consumer protests against price increases. Other ill-fated boycotts have been directed at only one link in a complex chain of factors, making the object of the boycott seem unclear or unrealistic. Still others never appeal to widely held values in order to attract mass support.


TK: I think any organized boycott of Burger King over this tomato wage issue would be ill-fated, in part because it precisely is directed at one link in a complex chain of factors. I believe most of the public would like Congress to deal with the working conditions of immigrant farm workers by enforcing our immigration and employment laws, not by this patchwork effort that is driven by one interest group.