Loving Wal-Mart and other top news for Jan. 26

I was in Wal-Mart today with my wife, picking up an order of photos and I struck up a conversation with a sales floor clerk. (I kept my high profile blogging status on the down low) She had much good to say about Wal-Mart ("It's the best kept secret," she told me. "It pays better than any other retail.") She told how well heeled suburbanites who formerly turned up their nose at Wal-Mart are now shopping at the store ("Where have they been for the past ten years?"). And she noted that Wal-Mart will match any advertised special, even in the produce department."Aldi has lower prices for avocados," she allowed, but she noted no other grocery retailer she visits honors the ad prices of competitors. She was such a great PR rep for Wal-Mart ("We get a bonus based on how the store does," she confided.) that I almost wanted to sign on right there on the spot. There is no more important customer to please than your own employee, and Wal-Mart has apparently accomplished that and more with Sue in Olathe.

Other top news for today:

Vilsack withdraws proposed $3 million cut to fruit and vegetable program From the USDA:
Vilsack also announced that the Department does not plan to implement a proposal developed by the previous Administration that would have cut more than $3 million from the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, a popular program that promotes the growth of healthy fruits and vegetables.

Tough times for tators Coverage from Washington state and KEPRTV.com
Suddenly, growers and processors scrambled to scale back. Dozens of orders had to be re-arranged. And too few acres of potatoes were now too many.

"There's a lot of uncertainty because people don't know what commodity prices going to bring," Clay Allen said, a sales representative for Double L.

Then last week, processors quietly announced they were immediately cutting the amount of potato contracts. French fry demand was way down. They blamed increased costs, a weak economy and changes in fast-food menus.

The big three processors, Lamb Weston (the potato- processing division of Con-Agra Foods), J.R. Simplot and McCain Foods could cut back as much as 20 percent.

Local food plea to supermarkets (UK) From The Press in York

That is the plea from the Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and Humber (RFG) It argues that while the recession is affecting people’s shopping habits, buying local food “can bring significant benefits to regions’ economies”.

Jonathan Knight, chief executive of the RFG, listing the benefits, said: “First and foremost local food production creates jobs in the local community, which in turn will have a positive impact on future investment and opportunities in the area.

Future food items may be a challenge to copywriters From Ad Age
We want our food to come with compelling stories, says the Guru of New, aka Sarah Browne. A perfect example, she says, is Dole organic bananas, each one branded with a number you can enter on the company's website and be transported, via Google Earth, to where it was picked -- and discover by whom. The cooler your story (ancient herbs! Long-lost tribes! Rare harvest!), the better.

A seed in time Brief history and appreciation of the apple

Organic options From the story, on "why organic"?

"Basically I see it as premium fuel," Krieger said. "It's better for you. It's better for the Earth, and it's better for the animals that are involved." Studies on the impact of organic foods in the diet have been small and are not yet long-term enough to be a good gage, but the impact on the environment seems to be more immediate.

EU's false insecticide fears post threat to Africa

You might assume that the EU could demonstrate some threat to humans or the environment, that it had found viable alternatives to the banned pesticides and that it had assessed the consequences of this ban to farming, to food prices and to the poor whose only defence against disease is pesticides. But you would be wrong on all counts.

Farmer's market to fight obesity, diabetes From the UPI in Brownsville, Texas:
A voucher system, funded by a grant by the Texas Department of State Health Services, allows low-income families to receive $10 in vouchers to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.The vouchers can go a long way at the market.

Citrus workers imperiled by carbon monoxide forklift apparently left running was the cause.

Obama promises to lead the world on climate change yet some say some damage from climate change is irreversible. Will that fact make more or less eager to sacrifice our lifestyles for lower CO2 emissions?

New Rio Queen citrus packing shed to open soon in south Texas

Two grocery stores label with nutritional information

Markets solve the immigration problem Sort of.

Vilsack promises to tackle food safety


More cheery news here: California controller discusses budget deficit.


Chile retail sales tumble 9% in December

Roubini: the worst is not over

Retail sales figures just published, Roubini reckons, demonstrate that the debt-burdened U.S. consumer is now panicking as job losses, income losses, declines in home wealth, and a severe credit crunch take a severe toll on their ability to spend.

"The reduction in spending and deleveraging of the U.S. consumer will take years to rebuild," said Roubini.

GAO High Risk Series - the link

Here is the link to the recent GAO High Risk Series. Here is what the 99 page report says about itself:


The list is updated every two years and released at the start of each new Congress to help in setting oversight agendas. Recent Congresses and administrations have been particularly alert to GAO’s High-Risk List and have used its findings to help tailor agency-specific solutions as well as broader initiatives across government.




On Food Safety


In 2007, GAO added the federal oversight of food safety to GAO’s high-risk list because 15 agencies collectively administer at least 30 food-related laws. Since then, the largest food-borne outbreak in the last 10 years was linked to Salmonella in fresh produce. Also, high levels of imported foods underscore the urgency to revamp this system. About 15 percent of the overall U.S. food supply is imported, as is about 60 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables and over 80 percent of seafood. In addition, more of the population—including older adults, children, immune-compromised individuals, and pregnant women—is increasingly susceptible to food-borne illnesses.


What remains to be done

GAO recommends that the President in the short term reconvene the President’s Council on Food Safety and in the long term consider alternative structures for the oversight of food safety. The executive branch should develop a results-oriented governmentwide performance plan to help ensure agencies’ goals are complementary and to help decision makers balance trade-offs when resource allocation and restructuring decisions are made. Congress should consider commissioning the National Academy of Sciences or a blue ribbon panel to conduct a detailed analysis of alternative food safety organizational structures and enact comprehensive, uniform, and risk-based food safety legislation.

Noncitrus fruit - USDA NASS report

Go here for the NASS report on 2008 noncitrus fruit. From the summary:

In 2008, the Nation’s utilized production of the leading noncitrus fruit crops totaled 17.7 million tons, up 4 percent from the 2007 utilized production. Utilized production increased from 2007 for CA prunes, prunes and plums (ID, MI, OR, and WA), cultivated and wild blueberries, cranberries, apples, CA dates, grapes, nectarines, strawberries, and CA plums. The value of utilized production for noncitrus fruit crops totaled 11.6 billion dollars, up 2 percent from 2007. The value of utilized production for red raspberries increased 209 percent, CA prunes increased 63 percent, OR black raspberries increased 47 percent, cranberries increased 45 percent, tart cherries increased 21 percent, and prunes and plums (ID, MI, OR, and WA) increased 20 percent. However, the utilized value of production for CA plums decreased 46 percent, CA olives are down 41 percent, boysenberries and ME wild blueberries decreased 34 percent, CA dates decreased 30 percent, and OR loganberries are down 28 percent.

United applauds USDA reversal on COOL funding

From United Fresh:

At a news conference today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack informed reporters that he was rescinding a decision by the previous administration that would have moved $3.2 million in Specialty Crop Block Grant money to fund oversight and enforcement responsibilities for mandatory COOL.

Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy at United Fresh, released the following statement on this decision:

We are extremely pleased that Secretary Vilsack has made this decision and reversed what would have been bad public policy all the way around. The Specialty Crop Block Grant program is an extremely important tool for producers across the country and was enacted by Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill with mandatory funding. It is incomprehensible that the previous leadership at USDA would place the entire burden of funding COOL enforcement on our sector, when COOL applies to meat and seafood as well. If USDA believes additional funding is required for COOL enforcement, we strongly believe Congress should appropriate funding solely for that purpose.

Vilsack’s policy reversal comes on the heels of former Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer informing House and Senate agriculture leaders in December that he was moving forward with this process despite strong objections by United Fresh and others. On January 6, 2009, the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, of which United Fresh is the secretariat, sent a letter to Secretary Schafer expressing strong opposition to this decision. United Fresh also worked closely with President Obama’s transition team to ensure this issue was address early on in the new Administration.

Direct farmer to consumer stores flourish in Japan

Fresh Produce flourishes as food safety rots is a link passed on by Doug Powell of the Food Safety Network. We see again the golden halo of locally grown produce is a phenomenon that goes beyond borders. Look for both common threads and unique attributes to the local food movement in this story, dateline Japan.

With public trust in food, packaging and labeling crumbling across the nation, consumers are taking a healthy interest in vegetables and other locally made produce.

In Kawasaki, where about 1 million people reside, a local farmers' cooperative opened its own store, Farmers' Market Ceres, in April last year to sell fresh food by direct sales.

At 9:30 a.m. one random weekday, customers started lining up in front of the store. By 9:55 a.m. it had grown to 50 people, just five minutes before opening time.

"Everybody comes here first thing in the morning because there are fresh products here," said a woman who said she was a regular customer.

Later...

The vegetables and fruits are not necessarily cheap compared with supermarket prices, but people are apparently buying them because they feel safer eating products made by farmers who aren't afraid to be identified.

According to JA General Research Institute, there are about 5,000 direct-sales stores nationwide. Of them, about 2,000 are run by farmers' cooperatives and 3,000 by third-sector companies and other farmer groups.

The stores rake in ¥80 million to ¥100 million a year on average, it said.

The larger of the stores first started opening outlets in the late 1970s, when pollution surfaced as a problem nationwide. The trend quickly spread in the 1990s after the bubble economy collapsed.

"Many of the consumers started having doubts about mass production and the mass retail system" at that time, said Masayuki Yamamoto, a researcher at the JA General Research Institute.

The stores also caused farmers to change their way of thinking. Many stores installed computer systems that allowed them to send daily sales data to each of the farmers so they could see what consumers were buying.

"I started thinking more seriously about how I can sell my products," said a farmer who supplies the Kawasaki store.

Selling products at direct-sales stores allows farmers to decide their own prices. This forces them to compete with supermarkets on price as well as quality and variety, such as by supplying vegetables not sold in regular stores.

TK: Increasing sophistication among growers, yes, but also the recognition that the halo could be toppled with an unfortunate incident or two. The story concludes:

But there are other hurdles that need to be overcome.

An official at the Kawasaki store said that agricultural knowledge varies among the farmers and that it needs to keep an eye on what kind of chemicals they are using to ensure the products they are selling are safe.

Fresh Talk poll - recession impact on travel

The just concluded Fresh Talk poll showed decidedly mixed opinions about the recession's impact on industry travel. I think the industry will travel far better to the trade shows than, say, the recent National Association of Home Builders show in Las Vegas. Show attendance for that hard hit industry was down sharply from year ago levels. For the relatively even-keeled fresh produce trade, convention travel allows for attractive economies in terms of meeting with many customers at one location. Find the Fresh Talk poll archive here.



How will the recession affect your produce business travel in 2009?

Reduced number of visits to customers	3 (14%)
Reduced convention travel	4 (19%)
Both	7 (33%)
Neither	7 (33%)

Votes so far: 21
Poll closed