June 21,2017

The food from this farm is rare and valuable, but it should be foreveryone

Fred Lum / The Globe andMail

I love this time of year. After the stress and uncertainty of a cold and miserable spring, the farm is finally starting to fire on all cylinders. Weve been harvesting for a couple of weeks now and as the June sun warms up our fertile soil, the garden is suddenly a riot of growth. For the past few days, weve been cutting hundreds of pounds of baby greens arugula, lettuce, kale and the most perfect, dark green, succulent spinach youve ever seen. Its all beautiful and delicious, and our chef clients are clamouring to get it into theirrestaurants.

Like any good businessperson, I want to charge as much as I can for what Im selling, especially since what Im selling is both rare and valuable. You cant find the kind of organic greens we produce on our farm just anywhere. But one of the most common criticisms of organic food is that its too expensive that its elitist andunaffordable.

I think this argument is bogus. Canadians spend less of their income on food than anyone else on the planet and a big portion of their food budget goes to things such as brewed coffee and soft drinks that they could easily do without. And why should I charge less for my products than the market will bear? Everyone on our farm works very hard and we deserve to be rewarded for our skill andeffort.

Fred Lum / The Globe andMail

While the vast majority of Canadians could afford to switch to organic, there are many who are too mired in poverty to eat well. When Gillian and I started farming more than 10 years ago, we quickly realized there was a disconnect between our need to make money and our desire to make our food more accessible. So we decided to throw aparty.

We asked one of our chef clients to help us cook a big meal, we hired a band to play in the barn and we sold some tickets. We raised a few thousand dollars, all of which went to purchase local, organic food from our farm and others like it for a progressive outfit in Toronto called the Stop Community Food Centre. The idea was to support sustainable farmers and to get really good food into low-incomeneighbourhoods.

Brent Preston

Over the years, our little fundraiser grew. We started inviting more chefs to cook and the bands we booked got bigger and better known. We had Stars, Sam Roberts and Sloan: Two years ago, the Tragically Hip showed up. We brought on sponsors and the amount of money we raised alsogrew.

This years event happened on June 17 and involved chefs from 15 incredible restaurants cooking on the front lawn. Almost 1,000 guests ate and mingled and enjoyed the late afternoon sun. At dusk, Joel Plaskett and the Emergency took the stage and almost rocked the barn down. Theres nothing like good food and good music to unlock goodwill and generosity. We raised more than $110,000 in onenight.

As I wandered through the crowds that Saturday, I couldnt help wondering how it had all come to be: How did so many chefs and foodies and musicians end up all together on our farm? The answer, of course, is that food brings us together, and that making good food available to those who cant afford it is an easy cause to get behind. What organic farmers and chefs and musicians have in common is that they all produce something rare and valuable, something worth paying for and worthsharing.

June 7,2017

The winter was long and lean and the spring cold and wet, but finally our first greens are ready - six months after we last gotpaid

This past winter was long and lean, as it always is on our farm. My wife, Gillian, and I spent our days catching up on bookkeeping, ordering seeds, and taking some time off, while our fields were covered in snow. As the weather began to warm, we started to get excited about the upcoming season. We planted salad greens as soon as the snow melted in early April, and our anticipation grew with ourseedlings.

This spring has been colder and wetter than any we have experienced in our years on the farm, but this week, finally, our first greens are ready. We sent out word to our clients a few days ago, and today we harvested. And not a moment too soon its been almost six months to the day since the last time we gotpaid.

We gave up trying to grow vegetables in the winter a long time ago. Our farm is on top of the Niagara Escarpment, in one of the coldest, windiest spots in Southern Ontario. Our greenhouses get so buried in snow that we often cant even get into them, let alone grow anything in there. So we have to grow all our food, and make all our money, in only half theyear.

Luckily, most of our food gets sold to restaurants, and most of our chef clients are committed to seasonaleating.

Farming was traditionally a seasonal business in Canada, but the big corporations that now dominate our food system have worked hard to convince consumers that they should be able to eat whatever produce they want at any time of the year.

Veggies are grown in massive, climate-controlled greenhouses in the middle of winter, and all manner of fresh fruits are flown from the far corners of the globe. If local asparagus is only available for a few weeks in the spring, why not bring it in from Argentina the rest of thetime?

The answer, for our chefs at least, is flavour. Eating Argentinian asparagus in February is a sad, limp, insipid experience. The chefs who buy from us want local and seasonal produce because it tastes best. They are also fiercely loyal to their local suppliers, looking on their farmers as partners, friends, and fellow artisans. Most of our restaurant clients dont have leafy greens on their winter menu: Instead they use locally grown storage vegetables like cabbage, Brussels sprouts and beets. But even the most committed chefs get tired of cooking out of the root cellar after a while. By this time of year, theyre just as excited as we are to see the first saladgreens.

Now that the first harvest is behind us, the madness truly begins. Tomorrow there will be a second harvest, followed by a third the next day, and so on, five or six harvest days a week until the snow flies in October. Well cut and wash and ship off thousands of pounds of beautiful, fresh, delicious vegetables to dozens of talented and appreciative chefs. Well work 12 hours a day, six days a week, racing against the looming winter, to sell as much as we can, so we can refill our family coffers. Its fun and exhausting and immensely satisfying work. And the vegetables taste especially sweet since I know that in a few months, theyll begone.

May 24, 2017

Youve probably never heard of a Jang, or a push seeder and neither have the vast majority of conventional farmers

Brent Preston

Last Monday morning was a little like Christmas on the farm. Last Monday, our new Jang got delivered.

Whats a Jang, you may be wondering? Ask any small-scale organic farmer that question and shell probably get a wistful look in her eye, as if remembering a passionate love affair from long ago. A Jang is the most elegant of machines, a precision-crafted tool that is both high-tech and radically retro, built from cutting-edge materials but powered entirely by human muscle. Its the kind of implement that organic farmers can talk about for hours on end when they get together the equivalent of the latest iPhone for small-farm geeks. A Jang, you see, is a pushseeder.

Let me guess, you dont know what a push seeder is either thats okay, neither do the vast majority of conventional farmers. They probably assume that the use of hand tools in commercial agriculture died out a century ago. But some of us are bucking the bigger is better trend that has pushed farmers to adopt massive, wildly expensive, diesel-guzzling machinery. Some of us are going oldschool.

On our farm, weve always aimed to be human-powered. Relying on people power rather than machines helps reduce our impact on the environment, preserve our soil, provide more employment and produce higher-quality vegetables. Its also healthier for us our bodies are a lot better off when we work with our hands in the fields, rather than riding a tractor allday.

What our preindustrial farming ancestors understood, and what some of us are rediscovering, is that well-designed hand tools can make human-powered agriculture exponentially more efficient, to the point where we can compete with our petro-powered neighbours. We weed with Swiss-made wheel hoes. We plant our seedlings in soil blocks made in a spring-loaded press imported from Holland. Most of our tools were originally introduced in the 1800s or even earlier, but theyre now made with modern materials and incorporate innovative designtweaks.

The Mac Daddy of our hand tool arsenal is the push seeder. For years, weve used a one-row seeder that looks like a little bicycle with a handle it picks up seeds from the on-board hopper, drops them down a chute into the soil and covers them up, all powered by a drive belt attached to the front wheel. Its a simple and elegant machine, but we now plant almost 15 kilometres of row every week, and pushing that little seeder back and forth all day can gettiresome.

Brent Preston and his wife Gillian Flies on their farm inOntario

Brent Preston

So Gillian and I decided to upgrade to the Jang. Its made in Korea and works on the same principal as our one-row seeder, but it plants six rows at a time. It has interchangeable sprockets in the drive chain so we can fine-tune the seeding rate, and larger, detachable hoppers so we can carry more seed and change seed varieties quickly. Thats why we got so excited when it arrived last Monday we knew we were about to increase our planting efficiency by a factor ofsix.

My tractor-driving neighbours probably think I look ridiculous pushing this little yellow contraption around in my fields, but I dont care. Im getting a good workout, Im not breathing any diesel fumes and the Jang cost me a tiny fraction of what their tractors are worth. The chains and gears on the seeder make a pleasant whirring sound as I push it down the row. Thats the sound ofmoney.

May 8, 2017

This year, our usual stress has been compounded by the weather; weve had one of the wettest Aprils on record

Thanks to a particularly wet April, the barnyard at the Prestons farm is a sea ofmud.

Brent Preston

Ah, spring! The season of possibility, when gentle rains bring forth new life and the bucolic countryside awakens in a burst of verdant green. What ajoke.

Spring is the ugliest season. On our farm outside Creemore, Ont., spring is the season of stress. The seeds we planted more than two weeks ago have barely started to grow. Its been almost six months since we last got paid, but money is flying out of our bank account: a thousand bucks for a new sheet of plastic to replace the one that blew off our greenhouse in a winter storm, more than $10,000 for seeds. Our seasonal employees started working last week, so were burning through almost $1,000 a day in payroll and were still weeks away from our firstharvest.

My wife, Gillian, and I abandoned downtown Toronto more than a decade ago to follow our dream of owning a small, diversified organic farm. That dream often turned into a nightmare in the early years, as we buckled under the pressure of trying to run a farm with no experience, no machinery and not much of a clue. Now, the emotional arc of each growing season seems to mirror the 10-year arc of our career asfarmers.

Spring is the time for anxiety and self-doubt. Will our customers come back after the long winter? Will some unforeseen plague descend on our gardens? Will it ever warmup?

This year, our usual stress has been compounded by the weather; weve had one of the wettest Aprils on record. It has rained almost every day, and last week we had three consecutive days of torrential downpours. The barnyard is a sea of mud, which makes the farm look even worse than it usually does at this time of year. An early snowfall last November covered up all the junk that we had been too exhausted to put away at the end of the season, but its all back in plain view now that the snow isgone.

The nice thing about having a decade of farming experience under our belts is that we know things will get better. The weather will improve. Our veggies will start to grow. The chefs and retailers who buy our produce will all get excited when we send them the first salad greens of the season. The puddles will dry, well tidy the place up, and the farm will once again be green and beautiful: bustling, profitable, and the setting for a happy and meaningful life for ourfamily.

MORE FROM THEFARM:

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Farm diary - The Globe and Mail

Temperature tips for safe grilling

We've said it before, but it's worth saying again as we head into the heydays of summer picnics and grillfests: Food safety saves lives. Actually, it's the USDA that's saying this, after finding that only one in three Americans use food thermometers when cooking hamburgers. Meat and poultry cooked on a grill often browns very fast on the outside, and by using a food thermometer you can be sure items have reached the safe minimum internal temperature needed to destroy any harmful bacteria that may be present. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 48 million people suffer from foodborne illness each year, resulting in roughly 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.

Here are the USDA guidelines:

Hamburgers, fresh sausages and other ground meats should reach 160 degrees.

All poultry should reach at least 165 degrees.

Whole cuts of pork, lamb, veal and beef should be cooked to 145 degrees as measured by a food thermometer placed in the thickest part of the meat, then allowed to rest for three minutes before eating.

Fish should be cooked to 145 degrees.

Get food safety questions answered around the clock by visiting AskKaren.gov.

Co-op Farm Tour July 15

The Minnesota Food Association (MFA) will host its annual open house and co-op farm tour on from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 15 at Big River Farms in Marine on St. Croix. The event will feature wagon rides, farm tours, live music, kids' activities, a market stand, food and raffle, and will serve as a chance for community members to mingle with farmers and staff. The event is free and open to the public.

MFA operates a land-based training program for immigrant and minority farmers, promotes equitable access to locally grown, healthy organic food via the Big River Farms Food Hub, and educates and advocates for farmer and food justice through community events and programs. For more information or to RSVP, visit mnfoodassociation.org/events.

Correction

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Your best grilling tool? A food thermometer - Minneapolis Star Tribune

New Delhi, Jun 26 () Food regulator FSSAI has come out with a draft regulation for organic food products, seeking to ensure that these food items are actually organic.

Organic foods will have to comply with the provisions under the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) administered by the government or the Participatory Guarantee System for India (PGS-India) run by the Agriculture Ministry or any other standards notified by the food authority.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has sought public comments of the draft regulations, which has been prepared in view of rising demand for organic food products, being considered as healthy, in the country.

"Organic food products are either those grown under a system of agriculture without the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides or made from organically produced raw materials ... Currently, a number of food products are being marketed as organic," the FSSAI said.

However, the regulator said that consumers do not have any way to check the authenticity of organic food products due to lack of a regulatory framework. "The draft regulation on organic food is aimed at overcoming this problem and ensuring that what is sold as organic food is really organic," FSSAI said.

The draft regulation mandates that labelling of organic foods should convey full and accurate information on the organic status of the product.

Organic food products should also carry a certification mark or a quality assurance mark given by any of the notified certification bodies.

The FSSAI's draft has exempted organic food marketed through direct sale by the original producer or producer organisation to the end consumer from verification compliance. However, this exemption does not apply to processed organic products.

The FSSAI has defined 'organic agriculture' as a system of farm design and management to create an eco system of agriculture production without the use of synthetic external inputs such as chemicals, fertilisers, pesticides and synthetic hormones or genetically modified organisms.

Excerpt from:

FSSAI issues draft regulations for organic food products - Times of India

I dont buy organic foods. In fact I specifically avoid doing so. Its not my place to tell anyone else what to do, but Id like to lay out three, seriously considered factors that have shaped my personal stance on organic:

For the last 40 years my wife and I have shared the shopping and cooking for our mostly home-based meals. We have always gardened, but also buy much of our fruit- and vegetable-rich diet from stores. When I say I dont buy organic, that involves frequent decisions.

Some delicious conventional Asian Pears

By all rights I should bean enthusiastic advocate and consumer of organic. I was a child of thegeneration influenced by Silent Spring. I was a dues-paying member of the Wilderness Society in high school. I grew up helping my beloved grandfather in his organic garden in the 1960s. Some of our best friends in the late 1970s were pioneers in the development of the commercial organic industry. Ive spent a significant proportion of my career developing biological and natural product-based pesticides which are applicable to organic. I fully appreciate the contribution that the organic movement made in the early 20th century when it highlighted the importance of fostering soil health. My problems with institutional organic are not at all about its founding ideals or about organic farmers, but rather about organicsself-imposed limitations and about the ethics of a sub-set of its promoters.

The USDA, which oversees the foods labeled as Certified Organic,states quite clearly on its websiteabout its role in organic: Our regulations do not address food safety or nutrition. Foods labeled Certified Organic must adhere to certain rules and regulations but arent endowed with any particular nutritional or safety features. However, many consumersbelieve that the Organic label means the food has superior nutrition and is safer, especially in regard to pesticide residues. This is not true. Studies have shown no appreciable difference in nutrition between crops grown either organically or conventionally.

My granddaughter enjoying conventional raspberries (yes, she did then eat them)

As forthe safety issue. When most people hear the word pesticide, they imagine something scary in terms of toxicity to humans and the environment. The reality is that modern agriculture employs an integrated suite of non-pesticidal control measures, and the actual pesticides used today are mostly relatively non-toxic tohumans. Organic farmers also use pesticides, and the products they are allowed to use are constrained with few exceptions by whether they can be considered natural. That is not a safety standard since many of the most toxic chemicals known are natural. Like all pesticides, these natural options are subject to EPA scrutiny, and so the pesticides that organic farmers are allowed to use are safe when used according to the label requirements which is the same standard for synthetic pesticides allowed on conventional crops. When it comes to pesticide residues on our food, there is aUSDA testing program that demonstrates year after year that the pesticide residues on both organic and conventional foods are at such low levels that we need not worry about them. I confidently buy non-organic foods based on thispublic data that demonstrates that our system is working and that we consumers are well-protected.

What the USDA data demonstratesis that theenvironmental movement was not a failure it effected real change over the past 5 decades! We dont have a two-tiered food supply in terms of safety in which only those who can afford the premiums get safe food. I also believe the global scientific consensus that GMO foods are safe, and so I dont need to buy organic to avoid those.

I have always been concerned about the human impact on the environment, and particularly about the impact of farming since that industry has the largest footprint in terms of land area. I spend a lot of time reading the scientific literature concerning agriculture and the environment. Some of the farming practices that are commonly employed on organic farms are very positive from an environmental perspective, but those practices are also used by progressive conventional growers. There are also quite a few farming practices with excellent environmental profiles which are difficult to implement under the organic farming rules (e.g. no-till farming, spoon-feeding of nutrients via irrigation). Compost, which is a major input for organic farms, has ashockingly high carbon footprint because of methane emissions. The carbon footprint of synthetic fertilizer is much smaller.

This no-till field in Illinois is good for the environment and food supply

From an environmental perspective, the biggest issue for organic is that itrequires significantly more land to achieve the same level of production.Were organic to become more than a niche category, this yield gap would be highly problematic from an environmental point of view. I would much rather buy food from land-sparing farming systems.

Organic yields are substantially lower for many major crops

Mythird reason for not buying organic has to do with ethics. Organic exists as a sort of super brand that transcends anyone marketing under that banner. Unfortunately, within the organic realm there are certain major marketers (and advocacy groups they fund) who employ fear-based and falsehood-based messages to demonize conventional foods. They use these methods as a means to promote organic. One of the most egregious examples is the Old McDonald/New McDonald video funded by Only Organic a consortium of very large organic marketers. This bizarrepublicity piece exploits children to depict a completely distorted view of mainstream farming. I consider it to be hate speech for profit. Another example is the organic-industry-fundedEnvironmental Working Group which grossly distorts thattransparent, USDA, public database documenting the safety of the food supply and turns it into adirty dozen list designed to drive organic sales. These are extreme examples, but the organic marketing community as a whole quietly benefits from this sort of propaganda and does nothing to correct the convenient fiction that organic means no pesticides. I realize that only part of the organic industry funds and promotes the most vicious sort of disinformation, but I rarely seeorganic representativesstanding up and objecting to the sort of fear-mongering that ultimately benefits the sales for the entire super-brand.

The fear-based messaging drives the intense social pressure, that parents in particular feel, about whether they need to buy organic. I dont want any part in rewarding this sort of fear/shame based marketing. In theabsence of a significant objection from more of the organiccommunity, I dont want to support the super brand.

So, these are my reasons for not buying organic products. I feel perfectly comfortable buying the alternatives that align withmy practical, idealistic and ethical standards.

Steve Savage you are welcome to comment here and/or to send me an email ([emailprotected] ).

This article originally appearedin Forbes here and was reposted with permission fromthe author.

Steve Savage is an agricultural scientist (plant pathology) whohas worked for Colorado State University, DuPont (fungicide development), Mycogen (biocontrol development), and for the past 14 years as an independent consultant. His blogging website isApplied Mythology. You can follow him on Twitter @grapedoc.

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Why one scientist refuses to buy organic foods - Genetic Literacy Project

Tom Colicchio wants every child to taste an apple by the age of three. Thats just one of the many odd comments the celebrity chef and restauranteur makes in a new video for his liberal political action committee (PAC), Food Policy Action. Over the past several years, Colicchio has worked really hard to position himself as a political mover-and-shaker. He endorsed Hillary Clinton and introduced her at a rally in Pittsburgh the day before the election (didnt help).

Last summer, he visited the Republican and Democratic conventions to promote his Plate of the Union campaign, passing out free nibbles from a food truck while urging lawmakers to make food policy a priority. He has testified on Capitol Hill for mandatory genetically modified food labels and against any cuts to subsidized school meals.

The Twitter timeline of this temperamental chef is a nonstop rant against President Trump and Republicans. (He tweeted me the day after the election, demanding to know where Trump stood on climate change and what I told my two daughters about Trumps election. Then he blocked me.)

Colicchio is rounding up his foodie friends, many of whom were pals with the Obamas but are now marginalized by the GOP, to fight the administration and Congress over the 2018 Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation that directs spending on hundreds of programs from crop insurance to food stamps. This bureaucratic behemoth is renegotiated every five years; the 2014 farm bill cost nearly $500 billion.

In his video, the same guy who charges $275 for an eight-ounce Wagyu beef filet at his Las Vegas steakhouse says that providing good, healthy, affordable and safe food is not just my job, its my passion. Colicchio declares we all have a right to healthy food and accuses the Trump administration of putting Big Ag and their profits ahead of health, safety and consumers.

Colicchio lives in some alternative universe that does not reflect the reality of America, where most of us have quick access to the cheapest, safest, and most abundant food supply in the world. Instead, Colicchio bemoans how healthy food should not be a luxury afforded to a few or for those who live near farmers markets. A tomato shouldnt cost more than a fast food burger. A tomato does not cost more than a fast food burger, except maybe in Manhattan, where the chef resides.

In April, Colicchio visited House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers in DC to lobby for his liberal policy agenda. He manages to tie every issue from immigration to national security back to food. He told MSNBC that our system doesnt support food that we eat. We are really great at producing corn and soy, but were not great when it comes to producing food thats nutritious that people want to eat. Must be news to American ranchers and fishermen, not to mention all the wheat, citrus, vegetable, potato, and nut farmers across the country.

Whats galling about Colicchio is he professes to be a champion of affordable-food-for-all but pushes ideas that will raise the price of food, limit consumer choice, and prevent farmers from using technologies like genetic engineering that boost crop yields. For example, Colicchio is demanding federal funding for organic agriculture in the Farm Bill: We can counter abundant pesticide use by diverting some of our tax dollars from supporting chemically intensive conventional cropsto supporting organic agriculture, giving farmers greater incentives and assistance to ease the transition to organic production.

This is not only a bad idea but contradictory to Colicchios professed goals. Organic food is more expensive. Organic food is not healthier or more nutritious. And there are reasons American farmers refuse to grow organic crops (only about 1 percent of U.S. farmland is dedicated to organic crops): its more labor-intensive, time-consuming, and produces lower yields. Contrary to the wistful, locally-grown appeal of organic food, most of it is imported here from Mexico, Eastern Europe, and South America.

Colicchios false claims about dangerous pesticide use on non-organic crops may actually prevent lower-income people from buying fruits and vegetables. Some recent studies find poor people may avoid purchasing fruits or vegetables if they cant afford the organic version because they believe regular produce is full of harmful pesticides. Organic farms do use pesticides, just non-synthetic types, but Colicchio and his foodie buddies insist on peddling an organic fantasyland where weeds never grow and farmers tenderly pick tiny bugs off plants with their bare hands before releasing them unto a rainbow sky where they live happily ever after.

The chefs long knives will also be out to defend Michelle Obamas school lunch program (he thinks school lunch should be free across the board) and the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which he says needs to be more robust. He and his foodie fighters want more subsidies for fruit and vegetable growers and higher wages for farm workers. Kinda funny from a guy who just closed his second restaurant in New York City in less than a year and blamed skyrocketing rents, which are mostly due to that citys labyrinth of taxes and government regulations.

Colicchios agenda is not really a food fight; its just another big-government mandate dressed up in kale and quinoa.

Julie Kelly is a National Review Online contributor and food policy writer from Orland Park, Illinois. She's also been published in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and The Hill.

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The Foodies Are Back To Fight For Counterproductive, Porky Ag Policies - The Federalist

Ralphs was the supermarket of choice for Inglewood hairdresser Elise Santos until grocery chain Aldi arrived in Southern California last year.

Aldi, a German-based discount grocer, opened its first U.S. store in 1976 but reached California only last year. Its now rapidly expanding and quickly has become Santos go-to market.

I prefer Aldi because it is smaller than grocery stores like Ralphs, she said, and the employees are friendlier and more helpful.

With 38 stores in Southern California, Aldi is just getting a toehold in the local grocery industry. But with the region already one of the most competitive in the nation, Aldi is adding to the pressure on Ralphs, Albertsons, Wal-Mart and other big chains as well as smaller grocers such as Sprouts to keep loyal shoppers and avoid losing market share.

The market is intense already, and when you put another horse in the race the field gets very crowded, said Ron Johnston, who publishes the industry-tracking Shelby Report.

Its about to get even more intense now that Amazon.com has agreed to buy Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods, the leader in the natural and organic food sector, has 465 stores including 85 in California. Whole Foods is widely expected to get more affordable under Amazon, which has transformed other retail segments such as books and electronics in part by driving prices much lower.

A few would-be rivals have already flamed out in the cutthroat Southland market. Fresh & Easy and Haggen Inc. both closed their stores in the region after failing to gain a steady following, due in part to operational and pricing missteps.

Undeterred, Aldi which mostly sells its private-label groceries at low prices plans to open at least 20 additional stores in Southern California in the next 12 months, said Liz Ruggles, Aldis marketing director.

Its part of the companys plan to spend $3.4 billion for an additional 900 stores nationwide by the end of 2022 on top of the 1,600 it already operates in the United States. The chain also plans to spend another $1.6 billion to remodel 1,300 of its existing U.S. stores by 2020.

That will further raise the stakes for competitors in Southern California, whose $45 billion in annual grocery sales makes it the largest U.S. grocery market, according to Johnston.

Besides Ralphs, the other players include Albertsons, which also owns Vons and Pavilions; Stater Bros.; Trader Joes; and big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Costco Wholesale Corp. and Target Corp. that have aggressively expanded their grocery aisles in recent years.

Although Aldi is a newcomer to the area, the family behind the chain already has grocery ties to Southern California: Aldi is controlled by the Albrecht family in Germany; through a family trust, the Albrechts also own Monrovia-based Trader Joe's.

Albertsons is the biggest operator in Southern California with 20.6% of the market, according to the Shelby Report. Kroger, which also owns Food4Less, is second with 18.7%.

Albertsons said it was prepared to fend off Aldi and any other rivals, including Amazon and others who are trying to expand grocery deliveries.

Competition in the grocery industry is expected, Albertsons said in a statement. Our focus is, and will continue to be, to run great stores throughout Southern California. Ralphs did not respond to a request for comment.

All grocers battle over price, convenience, service and selection, with prices especially crucial in an industry where the companies scratch out only a penny or two of profit for every dollar of sales.

Indeed, Kroger said this month that lower prices were cutting into its profit margins and said its national same-store sales that is, sales of stores open at least a year and excluding gasoline fell for the second straight quarter.

Asked why Aldi would fare better than Fresh & Easy or Haggen in Southern California, Ruggles said we have four decades of experience in the U.S. and what were doing has proven to be a model thats working.

And another German-based discount grocer, Lidl, is coming right behind Aldi. Lidl on June 15 opened its first 20 U.S. stores in three Eastern states, and its entirely possible that Lidl could invade Southern California one day, Johnston said.

Another Inglewood resident, Patricia Foster, said shes sold on Aldi because the prices are half of what you would pay at Trader Joes, Ralphs or Target.

Aldis stores are smaller and carry fewer items than conventional supermarkets, and they rely on more customer interaction to keep overhead costs down. For instance, customers bag their own groceries and it costs a quarter to use a shopping cart (with the quarter returned when the cart is returned).

The downside is that means its sometimes not a one-stop shop.

I buy everything I can here but they have a limited selection, and I often have to go to another place to buy specific items, Santos said.

Another shopper, retired schoolteacher Jennifer Baugher, said she didnt buy produce at the Aldi Inglewood store because I can get better quality at Trader Joes or Ralphs and Im willing to pay more for that. But she said Aldi is very cheap compared to prices at [other] grocery stores in L.A.

Ruggles said Aldi offers the majority of what customers are looking for and that its been aggressively expanding its offerings of produce, fresh meat and organic products.

The research firm IBISWorld recently noted that smaller-store formats, such as those operated by Aldi, Trader Joes and others, appeal to many consumers because they allow shoppers to choose between a select number of high-quality products rather than thousands of brand names.

More supermarkets will follow this trend in order to appeal to a growing millennial demographic ages 18 to 34 that prizes premium private-label brands in convenient store formats, especially foods aimed at the health-conscious, IBISWorld said.

Whole Foods is aware of that trend and plans at least six smaller stores, called 365 by Whole Foods, in Southern California that are aimed toward millennials. The first one opened in Silver Lake a year ago.

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Southern California's grocery battle heats up with the spread of discounter Aldi - Los Angeles Times

War and Labor

Early on, Nestl pushed its business overseas, and it opened its first American factory in 1900. The outbreak of World War I led to rich government contracts for condensed milk and chocolate. By the end of the war, Nestl had 40 factories around the globe. In 1938, the companys factory in Brazil led to the invention of Nescaf, the first commercial product for instant coffee.

During World War II, the Swiss companys global operation supplied both sides of the conflict. Nestl won a contract to feed the German Army, and the food giants American factories sold Nescaf to the United States military.

That approach would later come back to haunt it. In 2000, the company agreed to pay $14.6 million to settle Holocaust-era claims that some of its companies in countries under German control used slave labor. As a rule they were not worried or uneasy about the situation, and as long as production was maintained they had no thoughts of intervening in the management or personnel policy of their subsidiaries, said a 2001 report by a Swiss historian.

Nestls growth accelerated after World War II. In 1947, the company merged with Maggi, the maker of the Fondor seasoning brand. It was followed by the acquisition of:

Crosse & Blackwell (a British maker of preserves and canned foods) in 1960

Findus frozen foods in 1963

Libbys fruit juices in 1971

Stouffers frozen foods in 1973

In the 1970s, Nestl executives predicted a sluggish future for the food industry and diversified into cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The company acquired a stake in LOral, the worlds No. 1 cosmetics company, and bought Alcon Laboratories, the No. 1 company in eye care products.

When Helmut Maucher took over as chief executive in 1981, he said that he saw his task as getting this somewhat the sleepy company to move ahead. The first German to lead the Swiss company since Mr. Nestl, Mr. Maucher set off a wave of food industry megamergers in the 1980s.

In 1984, Mr. Maucher (pronounced MAO-ker) made a $3 billion deal to acquire the Los Angeles-based dairy and foods company Carnation. At the time, it was the largest acquisition not involving oil in American corporate history. Like Nestl, Carnation had a long history that began with milk and then diversified. Founded in 1899, Carnation sold condensed milk to prospectors embarking on the Yukon gold rush. It later expanded into Friskies cat food.

In 1988, Nestl spent $5.5 billion to buy the pasta giant Buitoni and the British chocolate maker Rowntree. And in 1992, the company won a battle for Source Perrier, the worlds leading mineral water company.

Maucher has used acquisitions to help pep up the corporate culture and get the whole organization thinking about growth, Paul Strebel, a professor at the Imede business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, said in an interview in 1989.

In 2002, Nestl struck a $2.6 billion deal to buy the maker of Hot Pockets and Toaster Pizza snacks. But a joint bid with Cadbury Schweppes to buy Hersheys for $12.5 billion was rejected.

As the worlds largest food company, Nestl has been tied to a number of food scandals.

In 1976, Nestls marketing of baby formula in developing countries was tied to higher infant mortality rates. Critics said that Nestl sold its substitute for breast-feeding without regard for a lack of clean drinking water and refrigeration. A seven-year boycott of its products ended after Nestl agreed to change its marketing practices in compliance with World Health Organization bylaws on infant formula. Critics said the company began to revert almost immediately.

A 1998 report by Unicef said that children from Mali and Burkina Faso were brought by traffickers to work in Ivory Coast, the worlds top cocoa exporter. Small farmers could then sell the cocoa to the worlds big chocolate makers. A New York Times investigation later found that the widely cited number of 15,000 child slaves working on Ivory Coasts cocoa plantations was exaggerated.

In 2007, Canada confirmed an investigation into price-fixing in the chocolate industry. Nestl Canada later settled a class-action lawsuit for $9 million without admitting guilt.

In 2008, Hong Kong found that the toxic industrial chemical melamine in Chinese-made milk supplies had sickened 50,000 children, caused at least four deaths and led to global recalls.

And in 2015, a Nestl report cited widespread labor and human rights abuses in the seafood industry, exposing companies that bought seafood from Thailand to endemic risk. Sometimes, the net is too heavy, and workers get pulled into the water and just disappear, one Burmese worker said, according to the report. When someone dies, he gets thrown into the water. The report followed an article by The Times on sea slaves.

Last month, The Times reported that Nestl pays a $200 annual permit fee and nothing else to pump more than 130 million gallons of water a year from a well it owns in Michigan. That Nestl does it for free? Thats just crazy, said Jeff Ostahowski, vice president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation. Businesses in the United States often get free water if they are willing to drill and pump it.

Nestls growth over the years has been driven by its expansion beyond the kitchen. Today, it sells more than 2,000 brands around the world.

It has recently tried to respond to shifts in regional appetites. In the United States, the chocolate business is waning as people eat healthier. Nestl said this month that it was exploring a sale of its American candy business.

That change may not come soon enough for investors. The hedge fund billionaire Daniel S. Loeb has urged the company to also sell its stake in LOral and sell off nonessential operations. As grocery shoppers go online and choices expand, classic food brands have stalled. Nestl now has to compete with a rising demand for organic foods and meal kits.

You cant take the way of life of one country and try to impose that on the whole world, seeing yourself in control and everyone else as a satellite, Mr. Maucher told The Times in 1989. Then youre not global. You have to remember there are different tastes around the globe.

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How Nestl Expanded Beyond the Kitchen - New York Times

Have you been meaning to include more organic foods in your diet, but the thought of spending even more on groceries is holding you back? Read on for some tips on how to eat organic without breaking the bank.

1. Eat seasonal. Organic or not, fruits and vegetables cost significantly more when theyre not in season.

2. Buy in bulk. Packaged goods are more expensive plastic and cardboard come at a price! Buying things like grains, cereal, dried fruit, pasta, coffee, meat and nuts in bulk will save you a lot of money.

3. Eat less meat. Organic meat is undeniably expensive. You can reduce your intake and save money by regularly replacing meat products with legumes and other protein-rich substitutes.

4. Garden. Harvesting your own vegetables is one of the best ways to save money on organic produce. If you dont have enough space at home, look for a community garden in your area.

5. Make it at home. Pre-cooked meals are expensive. Instead, purchase a variety of staple foods and have fun cooking up a storm!

6. Stick to your list. More often than not, impulse-bought food ends up at the bottom of the garbage bin.

7. Buy directly from the producer. Visit your local farms and public markets more often, or consider subscribing to a produce delivery service. Organic food that travels straight from the farm to your table is much more affordable.

Finally, keep an eye out for deals and spend wisely! For example, you can save big and enjoy a variety of organic produce year-round by purchasing in-season fruits and veggies and freezing them.

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Healthy living: Seven budget-friendly tips for eating organic - Montana Standard

Organic food sales have gone through the roof. Its no wonder. Its widely believed that organic foods are more nutritious and safer than non-organic; theyre even said to fight cancer even though the evidence is far from clear. Consumers have been paying a lot to eat organic; food certified as organic sometimes costs twice as much as conventional products. The premium prices may not be buying everything thats promised. The Situation About three-quarters of grocers in the US sell organic food, including specialty markets, like Sprouts, and mass-market retailers, like Wal-Mart and Target. While thats only 4% of total food sales, demand in the US and Europe is growing. The trend is driven both by rising interest in locally grown food two-thirds of US farmers markets have at least one certified organic producer and fears about food safety. Roughly 48mn Americans every year become sick and 3,000 die from food borne diseases. To be labelled organic, the US Department of Agriculture says food must be grown without synthetic fertilisers and must be free of genetically modified organisms; meat must be raised without antibiotics and growth hormones and the animals must have access to the outdoors. There are similar standards in the European Union and Japan. In China, demand for organic food is skyrocketing after a series of scandals over tainted food has consumers willing to pay double for organic items. The Background Until the invention of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, all agriculture was organic. Sulphuric acid was first used to extract phosphate from bones and rock for use as fertiliser in the mid-1800s. Poison gas research in World War I led to bug-killing nerve gases, including sarin and DDT, which was so effective at killing malaria-carrying mosquitoes it won its inventor a Nobel Prize. After Rachel Carsons book Silent Spring documented the dangers of DDT, the chemical was banned for use as a pesticide in the US in 1972. In the 1970s, the first industrial-scale animal farms in the US began popping up, first for egg production, later for pigs and cattle. Yields increased, but so did worries: These animals are often treated with antibiotics and consumption of the meat has led to more drug-resistant infections in humans. Health-food stores began appearing in the 1960s; New Age Natural Foods, opened in San Francisco in 1965. In 1990, after the USDA passed the Organic Foods Production Act to develop national standards, organic products became more common. Mainstream grocery chains started their own lines of organic food, while large foodmakers began snapping up smaller organic startups. Coca-Cola bought juice and bar maker Odwalla in 2001; Stonyfield Farm, an organic dairy producer, became a subsidiary of Danone in 2004; and Hain Celestial Group bought Rudis Organic Bakery in 2014. The Argument Proponents say that organic produce has more nutrients, including antioxidants and vitamins that may prevent or delay cell damage, than conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. They also argue that eating organic produce and meat reduces diners exposure to toxic chemicals, such as pesticides and fertilisers, that may increase the risks of certain types of cancer. A 2016 study found that organic milk and meat have more essential fatty acids and other key nutrients. Eating organic can also help the environment by supporting farms that send less toxic runoff into water and soil. Big supermarket chains like Aldi and Kroger are filling more shelves with organic products, driving down prices for low-income shoppers and biting into the bottom lines of traditional organic and natural-foods stores like Whole Foods. Non-organic makers also see the commercial appeal and have piggybacked on the organic reputation by using labels like all-natural or local, though these can contain pesticides and chemicals. Just because food is organic doesnt mean that it wont make people sick, and fertilising crops with improperly composted manure can result in E. coli contamination. Some say eating organic food doesnt improve health. In fact, plenty of foods labelled organic arent inherently healthy. (Organic gummy bears?) And fears of pesticides may be driving people away from eating enough fruits and vegetables. Nutrition aside, one thing organic foods have going for them is popular opinion 41% of Americans say organic tastes better than non-organic.

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Organic food - Gulf Times

NEW DELHI: Your organic rice, pulses and condiments would now be certified with something more than the green label. All packaged food marketed as organic would now need the stamp of approval of notified certification authorities, and must contain full and accurate information on their organic status, according to draft regulations of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

This is the first time FSSAI has formed regulations for this category of food, which is an expanding industry in an increasingly health-conscious India. According to a study by Assocham and TechSci Research, a non-government body, the current market (pulses and bulk food grains) is at $500 million, up from about $360 million in 2014. Organic food products are either grown under a system of agriculture without the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, or made from organically produced raw materials, the draft said.

Raw commodities such as fruits, vegetables and cereal grains that are not processed and marketed directly from a farmer/producer or producer organisations to the consumer do not need the certificate.

The industry welcomed the move. This is a good first take. It will give reasons to consumers to have some more confidence. Going forward, there will surely be more refinement, said N Balasubramanian, CEO of 24 Mantra Organic.

The draft proposal offers two choices for items that claim to be organic: The produce must comply with the provisions of the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) administered by the central government. Alternatively, the items must comply with Participatory Guarantee System for India (PGS-India), run by the ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, or any other system or standards set by the food authority. The regulator has put the draft regulations in public domain for suggestions.

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Packaged organic food may need government stamp - Economic Times