Food to fuel : Enough is enough!

Here is a news release from the GMA and the industry's old friend Cal Dooley. He takes on the government's food to fuel policy. From the GMA:

On Monday, World Bank President Robert Zoellick emphasized the connection between rising global food prices, social unrest and poverty, and the use of biofuels:
“Rising food prices, which have caused social unrest in several countries, are not a temporary phenomenon, but are likely to persist for several years, World Bank President Robert Zoellick says. Strong demand, change in diet and the use of biofuels as an alternative source of energy have reduced world food stocks to a level bordering on an emergency, he says.” (Associated Press, Apr. 7, 2008)

Cal Dooley, CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, today issued a statement on the relationship between food-to-fuel mandates and the growing global food crisis:
“People in America and around the world are feeling the intense pressure of spiralling food prices from misguided Congressional mandates that force over ¼ of America’s corn supply to be used for fuel rather than food. These “food-to-fuel” mandates have caused a massive increase in the price of corn and other food staples, with ripple effects that are now being seen across the globe.

“World Bank President Zoellick is correct that this is a major challenge. Our policy makers must recognize the urgency of this issue and act quickly to help resolve it. Among the most immediate and effective steps would be a reexamination of the U.S. Government's food-to-fuel policies that have driven up prices and pressure on vulnerable people everywhere.”
-- Cal Dooley

How dire?

I have an email into DC to talk about the planned restructuring at AMS Fresh Products Branch, but no word yet. The following numbers are from a federal market financial status report, mailed anonymously to me some time back. For fiscal year 2007, the AMS said that only Philadelphia (+$242,000), St. Louis (+$40,000), Portland (+$34,000) and Hartford, Ct, (+$4,718) - of 36 federal markets - finished "in the black," or had revenues that exceeded obligations.

The federal market offices with the most red ink, according to the fiscal year 2007 financial stats report, were the Bronx (-$396,000), Pittsburgh (-$313,000) Chicago (-$260,000), Dallas (-$218,000) and San Francisco (-$180,000) and Los Angeles (-$174,000).

In her April 4 memo, Skelton did not directly refer to closing offices, but did say there would be reductions in force, early retirement, reduced overtime, reduced travel and decreased refresher training and furloughs. Skelton said 78% of the FPB's operating expenses are salaries and benefits, so that's where most of the cuts are. The cuts will be both at headquarters and in the field offices, she said.

This has got to be a morale-buster at the FPB, particularly with uncertainty still out there about which offices and inspectors could be directly affected. Wasn't the USDA's Fruit and Vegetable Advisory Committee told the 15% annual fee increases for inspections were going to be the way the federal offices would stabilize their budgets and stem the flow of red ink?

Apparently, the word has come down from on high to cut and cut now. Consider that total revenue for fiscal year 2007 for the federal market program was about $15.7 million and obligations were $19.6 million. Cutting $5 million won't be easy.

Paper or Resuable?

Are plastic bags going to go the way of the horse-drawn buggy? I'm thinking they will, given the enormous push to reduce waste and bolster sustainability. Here is a link to a good article from The Washington Post on the issue. But what about those of us who use plastic bags for kitchen trash bags - that counts for something, no? From the story:

I jumped on the eco-bandwagon two years ago and bought my first reusable shopping bag at Giant for 99 cents. I went to the cash register flushed with pride, only to watch the clerk try to stuff my bag into a plastic one. I was furious, but that was just the beginning.

I've had to stop workers multiple times from packing my groceries in plastic bags before placing them inside my resuable bag. I rarely get the discount for bringing my own bag, and when I've asked for it, I've gotten blank stares. It's only three cents, but it's about the principle. What gives? Has plastic become our societal default?

According to Reusablebags.com , an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year -- or over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year. Wind-blown plastic bags have become so common in Africa that groups are now harvesting them to weave into bowls and hats. And apparently, lots of cute sea turtles die because they mistake the discarded bags for jellyfish, one of their favorite snacks.

I called Giant and Safeway to ask about their reusable bag policies and why the workers I sometimes encountered seemed to be so confused. Turtles lives hang in the balance, people! From Jamie Miller, Giant spokesman:

"The program is communicated to our cashiers. I'll be honest, we probably -- at the front end with our cashiers -- we probably haven't executed as well as we'd like to and we're going to beef up the training that we do. We really want to encourage our customers to purchase the reusable bags and reuse those."

Greg TenEyck, a spokesman for Safeway, said the company trains checkers on paper vs. plastic but hasn't really taken reusable into account. But customers' main complaint is that checkers don't fill the plastic bags that they do use, he said. Buy 10 items, and walk out with 10 bags -- even more if the checker performs the dreaded "double bag."

It turns out that each of Safeway's plastic bags can hold up to 20 pounds of weight. The company even has a local Director of Industrial Engineering whose job is to make sure the bags hold up. This guy keeps a Safeway plastic bag filled with at least 20 pounds of stuff hanging on a hook outside his office for months at a time to prove his point. Which is basically a long way of saying that double-bagging is totally unnecessary.

But the most eco-friendly option of all is to simply bring your own bag. That's why Whole Foods will stop carrying plastic bags at its stores starting on Earth Day (April 22). The company started giving out reusable bags as a marketing campaign and to raise money for charity in 2005, and they were so popular they began selling them in stores, said spokeswoman Michelle Guerrero. Customers get 5 cents back for each bag they bring. Guerrero said Whole Foods has distributed about 1.2 million reusable bags in the Mid-Atlantic region alone since it started the program.

Mobile junk mail

Everyone who runs out the door of their supermarket when the cashier asks them to sign up for a "shopper" or "loyalty" card, won't like this concept much either. Here is the link to a story describing how Kroger will use mobile coupons to lure customers to their store. From the story:

The new program, which will launch at the end of the second quarter, includes partnerships with packaged foods compa­nies Procter & Gamble, Del Monte, Gen­eral Mills and Kimberly-Clark. These companies will offer various discounts via the Cellfire mobile service.
“The goal is to help consumers save money while shopping at Kroger and to get them to do so by engaging with their mobile phone,” said Brent Dusing, CEO of Cellfire.
The campaign encourages customers to sign up for the Kroger loyalty pro­gram, as the benefit is exclusive to mem­bers. Participants in the Cellfire program can download the service to their mobile phones via WAP or Java to search for offers and discounts offered throughout the Kroger store. The program is inte­grated into Kroger's existing loyalty pro­gram and ties into the retailer's back end point-of-sale system, so it automatically redeems Cellfire coupons for registered users upon checkout.
The coupons offered will be mobile-exclusive and will be specific to the store location. The program will begin in one region of the country, though Dusing would not say where exactly. He did say that they program would expand nation­wide by the end of the year.
To promote the coupons, Kroger will use in-store signage with offers, as well as Web ads on its site. Wireless carriers that host the Cellfire application, includ­ing Verizon, Alltell and Boost, will also promote it on their platforms.

TK: This sounds like a truly bad idea to me. I don't want advertising delivered on my cell phone, no matter if I can save $1 on Cheerios.

Produce Promotions - April 9 - April 15

It's time to break out the grill and fire it up, and suburban KC supermarkets are obliging by featuring ground beef, chicken, pork ribs and pork chops in their weekly food page ads. Here are some top line produce items featured this week, with prices good from April 9 to April 15. By the way, check out the retail produce promotion spreadsheet at the bottom of the page, with figures from the USDA....

Price Chopper
Dole Salad blends (10 oz.) 2/$3
Sweet corn (Peaches & Cream variety) 3/99 cents
Blackberries: 2 5.6 oz. packages for $4
Washington Premium Fuji apples: $1.49/lb
Avocados: 2/$3


HyVee
Disney navel oranges: 77 cents/lb
Del Monte Gold pineapple: $2.88 each
Stemilt Jumbo Braeburn apples: 97 cents/lb
Dole Iceberg lettuce: 77 cents/head
Green Giant Klondike Rose red potatoes: $2.48/5 lb


Aldi
Carrots (3 lb bag) 69 cents
Fresh cabbage: 89 cents each
Mushrooms: 8 oz 89 cents
Russet potatoes: 10 lb bag: $1.99

Hen House
Iceberg lettuce: 2 for $1
Green Giant Ad combo: cauliflower: lettuce, potatoes, celery hearts, broccoli crowns, red potatoes, Idaho russets
Quarter watermelon: 59 cents each
Sweet corn: 3 ears for 99 cents
Blackberries: 2 for $4
Hot House tomatoes: $1.69/lb
Red ripe strawberries: $7.99/4 lb package

Stallman and Dooley to Congress: Pass Colombia TPA

Agriculture, food manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are predictably on board with the Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. But will it get a vote in 90 days? From Bob Stallman of the American Farm Bureau Federation comes this comment:

The American Farm Bureau Federation is pleased that President Bush has sent the implementing legislation for the Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement to Congress. This important trade agreement is good for U.S. agriculture because it corrects an inequity that exists between U.S. and Colombian agricultural exporters.

“Currently, U.S. exports face significant tariffs or other restrictions in Colombia. Meanwhile, 90 percent of Colombian products enjoy duty-free access to the United States due to the Andean Trade Preference and Drug Eradication Act, which Congress recently extended. Congressional approval of the Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement will clear the way for U.S. food and agricultural products to receive duty-free treatment into the Colombian market.
“The Colombia TPA is an opportunity to rectify the current trade inequity, as well as strengthen our economic ties with Colombia through greater market access. AFBF urges strong bi-partisan support for the agreement and calls on Congress to pass it without delay.”

From Cal Dooley of Grocery Manufacturers Association:
“GMA strongly supports the passage of the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (US-CTPA) and we urge swift congressional action on passage of this agreement."

Fresh & Easy Reviews

Here are customers reviews of Fresh & Easy from Yelp. Here are just a couple of comments on the site:

Brian S. from LA:
I really, really like the new Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. Good products, decent selection, super clean and well-organized. It will probably be compared (favorably or otherwise) to Trader Joe's, which it resembles in some ways, but is actually a very different kind of store. I am a longtime patron of Trader Joe's, but Fresh & Easy definitely offers some advantages.

For one thing, this particular F&E location features a humongous, sparsely populated (carpulated?) parking lot, which is a breeze compared to horrific clusterf**k of almost any TJ's (especially Silverlake and LaBrea). I've made 4 trips in the past 2 weeks since my initial discovery, and there never seem to be any cars in the lot.

The store interior is likewise well-organized, spotlessly clean and almost as uncrowded as the parking lot. Where are all the people? Do they not know it exists? (Actually a possibility, considering its fairly nondescript exterior.) Being there one morning at 8:05 am (5 mins. after opening) reminded a little of the deserted British grocery store in 28 Days later (but in a good way).

Items are nicely displayed and they have a little tasting kiosk similar to the ones at TJs. There's never a line at the self-serve check-out, and my 6 year-old thinks it's fun to help scan the items. There are enough employees milling about to help you with checkout if you need it, and they'll help bag your groceries if they're not busy. I fear that if this place ever gets really busy, we could see gridlock at the registers, but maybe they have a plan in place for that eventuality.

For me, the best part of the F&E experience (well, Best Part, Part One), is that they actually carry just enough national brands so that you don't have to split your shopping into two destinations (as is often the case with TJ's). Sometimes, I've donemy regular shopping at TJ's, only to remember that I have to make one more stop at Ralphs or Vons to pick up Diet Pepsi or some other specific national brand item that TJ's doesn't carry.

You see, for most items, F&E has their own F&E brand, plus one national brand alternative. Want peanut butter? They've got F&E, plus Skippy. That kind of thing. If you must have a choice between several heavily marketed national brands of packaged goods, F&E might not be your store. But then again, neither would TJ's in the first place. And the national brand items are much cheaper than at big stores like Ralphs or Vons.

As for the F&E brand, they feature a range of items from daily staples to even some gourmet items like you might find at Williams Sonoma. Very good prices across the board, comparable to Trader Joe's, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

Which brings me to the Best Part, Part Two: I am a huge fan of pretty much every F&E brand item that I have tried, thus far. Simple ingredients lists that you don't need an advanced degree in Chemistry to decipher? Check. Items sweetened with cane sugar, not HFCS? Excellent.

Very minor negative: While they have a decent selection of wine and beer, it's certainly not the equal of TJ's. But it's certainly better than a convenience store. And the $2 Aussie Big Kahuna rocks!! (Not kidding. For a "second bottle", it's quite solid, and much better than 2-Buck-Chuck.) And for really esoteric stuff, I probably wouldn't be shopping for it at the grocery store anyway.

Another minor con: Their produce is pre-packaged (and able to be barcoded), so you have to go with the quantities they choose. (10 plums? I can't eat that many before they're no longer fresh.) At least it's not Costco quantity in most cases.

But these are small quibbles. I like the store, I like their products, and I like the general "differentness" of the place. It almost makes me feel like I'm on vacation in another country and shopping the way the locals do (and it's a lot cheaper than a transatlantic flight). I'm happy they're in the neighborhood.


From Tom E., Cambridge, Mass


Fresh & Easy is the experimental US venture by UK supermarket giant Tesco. After Wal-mart and Carrefour (french), Tesco is the third biggest retailer in the world. They say that 1 in every 9 pounds in Britain is spent at Tesco. They are hugely dominant, ubiquitous and unaviodable, with stores randing from 7-11 size outposts to mega-warehouse size destinations.

But the US is a tough cookie to break. For one, Wal-mart spies are out-bidding Tescos on all land purchases for potential Fresh & Easy stores, not so that Wal-mart can put a store there themselves, but simply just to prevent the competition. OUCH.

So to get around this Tesco have gone back to their roots - targeting the upper-lower to lower-middle classes. For LA's Fresh & Easy's this means Latin Americans. So the typical lovely goods you can find in a British supermarket - cheeses, wines, bacon, sausages, salads - are interspersed with tortillas, cactus, salsas and habaneros. It's a strange marriage. But think about it - where do all the Latin American working community do their shopping? I don't see them at Vons, Trader Joes and certainly not Whole Foods. So Fresh & Easy are going after a viable - if difficult to track - demographic.

:::::: REVIEW :::::::
The store is light and airy, but sparsely decorated. For the first third of the store I felt I was in wonderland simply because the font on all the products was just like that in the UK. Damn, I'm worse than Pavlov's dog - salivating at the FONT!!!

Beyond that the store wasn't so hot. It's innovative - hybrid-only parking spots, self-service checkouts dominate over staffed ones, wine is displayed next to cheeses, fruit and veg are usually packages up to go already - but also a lot of the key produce was missing and it felt a chore to be shopping there.

I like the name (the checkout guy wouldn't let me buy his Fresh & Easy T-shirt) and I do hope they expand so that the US food sector ups it's game. Sadly for Tesco, their new store was pretty empty, and their target demographic missing. Most people there were just like me, Brits hunting for pork pies and spotted dick.

Section 3104

A little-noted provision of the farm bill is under scrutiny by the progressive group CommonDreams.org. From their press release April 7:

Agricultural corporations Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland have started an aggressive lobbying effort to drop a provision from the Farm Bill which would establish a voluntary certification program related to imports made using forced labor and child labor. Section 3104 of the Farm Bill, called Voluntary Certification of Child Labor Status of Agricultural Imports, would provide a method which producers of agricultural products could use to certify that their products are free of child labor and forced labor.

TK: I Googled this provision and came up with absolutely no other news references. If anyone else has heard of this and its significance, please provide a comment here.

Skelton: restructuring ahead

A internal memo from Leanne Skelton to Fresh Products Branch staff on April 4 informed inspectors and others of what she called "ongoing, branch-wide restructuring efforts." According to the memo, Skelton said that the branch needs to "permanently reduce operating expenses by at least $5 million" within the year. While the plans ave not been finalized and approved, the wheels are in motion for cutbacks on a large scale. I'll have more coverage of this story as I have a chance to review some of the elements of the memo with AMS and the FPB.