Published on May 8th, 2008
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At the Investors’ Circle Conference in San Francisco, the Plenary Session of the May 7th Education Day was titled, “Is Organic the Next Clean Tech?” Can organic foods (and other products) can attract major investment capital, in the way clean technology has in the past few years, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
I am not sure whether the answer is a resounding yes, but panelist Walter Robb, Co-President and COO of Whole Foods Market announced that Whole Foods will be investing in small supplier companies, and all of the panelists were positive about the potential of investing in organics.
Kristen Groos Richmond, Co-founder/CEO of Revolution Foods, who has a wonderful if improbable company, which I wrote about before, can speak first-hand about the ways entrepreneurs can attract professional investors while pursuing goals such as connecting local farmers and consumers. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 3rd, 2008
It seems like your local grocer has reason to go green. Not only are we living in an era where words like “global warming” and “climate change’ have entered the common lexicon, we have, it seems reached the tipping point where green living is driving consumer purchase.
A walk down the aisles of Kroger or Safeway or any chain grocery store confirms this as natural and organic section signs pop up in spots previously reserved for salty snack foods and frozen sugar laden sweets. Packaging is shrinking. Light bulbs are energy saving. And the words “eco” and “green” leap out at consumers at every turn.
Obviously the retail grocery industry has gotten the message. An article in Progressive Grocer gives some insight into what’s next on the agenda.
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Published on April 24th, 2008
As retailer to over 90% of US households, Wal-Mart is in the unique position of being an excellent compiler of information.
Recently they started tracking shoppers’ green buying habits. Actually all retailers track products their consumers purchase for inventory control. Wal-Mart however was one of the leaders in using this data to tightly control inventory and share information with manufacturers. They retain leadership in this area with RFID tracking systems and well managed JIT manufacturing cooperative programs with their vendors.
Now Wal-Mart is sharing some of this information with the world with the Wal-Mart Live-Better Index .
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