Comes news that Walmart is going to start "working with" local farmers on behalf of sustainable agriculture. The program, says the New Yawk Times story, is intended to put more locally grown food in Wal-Mart stores, invest in training and infrastructure for small and medium-size farmers, and to measure how efficiently large suppliers grow and get their produce into stores.
This is big news, and not just because it might give small farmers a chance at some Wal-Mart business. "Grocery is more than half of Wal-Mart's business," their ceo said, yet only four of the company's 39 "public sustainability goals" address the issue of food. (Whole Foods has long encouraged store managers to purchase from local farmers.) Wal-Mart will invest $1 billion to improve its supply chain for perishable food, which will help local farmers and ranchers. Along with other improvements in purchasing and tracking, the Wal-Mart initiative could well be the shot in the arm that small local farmers need to enter the mainstream of the American food supply chain.
But in the meantime (and you didn't think you were going to get off scott free, did you?), there's a new product from Chiquita, the banana people. It's a "produce wash" called FreshRinse that Chiquita says reduces (dramatically) those icky microorganisms on leafy greens and helps maintain their freshness."We view FreshRinse as the biggest invention since the start of pre-packaged salads," says the ceo. "FreshRinse sets a new standard in food safety for the produce industry."
A brief aside to readers: remember these posts?
- Don't Lettuce Poison You (September, 2006)
- We iz poopn in ur spinach (May, 2007)
- And We iz back, still poopn in ur spinach (August, 2007)
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