JEFFERSONVILLE Fresh Stop Markets aren't food pantries or farmer's markets, they are nestled somewhere in-between and are designed to make a big impact in the areas they serve including, most recently, Jeffersonville.

The concept is simple. Bring local, organic produce into a community with limited access to it and have people pay what they can. Those with more money pay more and those with less pay less and in the end it all evens out.

Despite the easy premise, there was nothing in Clark County like Fresh Stop Market until now.

"This lets families pool together money and SNAP benefits and creates markets for local farmers," said Karyn Moskowitz, founder and executive director of New Roots, the nonprofit behind the market.

In addition to making good affordable, the market makes it accessible. According to Moskowitz, the organization only sets up Fresh Stops in areas that are classified as "food deserts" by the USDA.

The second-ever Fresh Stop Market took place Thursday night at Wesley United Methodist Church, located at 1201 Thomas V. Bryant Dr. in Jeffersonville.

Jim Grahn brought the idea to the church and New Roots both. He said the church was an obvious choice to him due to its prime location and, he found out later, the members' passion for the initiative.

"It's one of those special things about Jeff, people are always looking out for each other," said Mayor Mike Moore, who came to both the first market and on Thursday.

Around 46 stakeholders had signed up ahead of time to get produce, a number the church hopes grows to about 90 by the end of the season, according to Janis Barnett.

"Everyone needs to come get some of God's blend-able vegetables," Barnett said.

Those that came Thursday night left with cabbage, turnips, squash, basil, garlic, blueberries and more, all organic and grown within 100 miles of the church.

Every vegetable station has a flier for the vegetable or fruit, giving helpful tips on how prepare it.

"Who knew you could mash a turnip?" Staci Thompson asked, one of the stakeholders that came out Thursday.

Thompson, along with wife Amanda, loved the opportunity to get local produce and try foods they never would have gotten for themselves.

The couple paid the $40 "Justice share" option, meaning they paid for their own and a portion of someone else's.

Even so, they say the price tag is less than what they pay at a traditional grocery store for such a variety of organic produce.

Trevor Semones, a chef from Wild Eggs, had samples of marinated cucumber relish and cornbread to inspire the shareholders. His recipe contained cucumber, Swiss chard, garlic and sweet basil, all ingredients available Thursday night.

A different local chef will come each time to create a new fare, pass out samples and show people what they can make with what they are taking home.

The market will continue every other Thursday from 4:30 to 6:30 until October. Shareholders can expect different produce each time, always local, organic and in-season.

To get in, simply go to freshroots.org and click "ordering."

The price varies based on income. Mothers who receive WIC pay just $6 for their share, SNAP recipients pay $12, those with a higher income pay $25 and have the option of paying $40 like the Thompsons did. Those wishing to order can do so online, over the phone or by dropping off their money at the church with Barnett.

Moskowitz hopes to replicate the program across the region so "people can be happy and healthy." This season there are 15 markets in operation across Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

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Pop-up market in Jeffersonville offers sliding scale, organic produce - Evening News and Tribune

A difficult year for Target is getting worse. Wall Street is now more worried about Amazon's threat to Target after the e-commerce giant's $13.7 billion deal to buy Whole Foods Market.

Target shares fell 5 percent Friday on the news of the deal. The stock is down 29.5 percent this year after the retailer's disappointing financial results. The S&P 500 has gained 9 percent.

Citi Research on Wednesday lowered its rating for Target to neutral from buy, saying its food business is at risk due to Amazon.

"With Wal-Mart enhancing its e-comm portfolio with Jet.com and Bonobos over the past year through acquisitions that target millennials and AMZN's sizable entry into fresh/organic food w/ WFM acq., TGT's two main competitors have very quickly changed the game," analyst Kate McShane wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. "This makes TGT's rev. growth prospects through organic or acq. growth tougher to achieve, absent any kind of game changing move."

McShane reduced her price target for the company to $56 from $63. The lower target would be a 10 percent gain from Tuesday's close.

The analyst noted that food is approximately 22 percent of Target's sales and that it has been able to differentiate itself somewhat by offering consumers all-in-one access to food and household products. That competitive advantage will be diminished when Amazon has Whole Foods' network of stores, she said.

"TGT's strategy of differentiating itself from AMZN and WMT through offering immediate access to food/HPC [household and personal care] and having a differentiated mix skewing to fresh/natural/organic has effectively been muted," she wrote.

Target spokesperson Erin Conroy in an email response to this story wrote:

"We recently announced a multi-year plan to position Target to deliver consistent growth and market share gains by elevating the shopping experience for our guests. We're making a more than $7 billion investment in our business, which includes technology and supply chain enhancements, reimagining the design of more than one-third of our stores, accelerating the opening of small format stores around the country and introducing twelve new brands to our exclusive merchandise assortment over the next two years.

Food and beverage is a key category for Target, representing about 20 percent of our annual sales. More importantly, it's part of our guests' shopping journey and something they want to find at Target. As we've shared, we are on a journey to create a differentiated experience in food and beverage. While the work won't be done overnight, we are committed to getting it right for the long term and are encouraged by the progress that we are making."

Target shares were essentially flat midday Wednesday at around $51 a share.

CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.

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Wall Street bails on Target after Amazon's deal for Whole Foods - CNBC

For years, Amazon ( amzn ) has been the specter looming over retail, as once-dominant department stores and specialty chains fell on harder and harder times. But up until now, the e-commerce titan has managed to irrevocably alter the industry without making much of a dent in retails biggest moneymaker of allthe $800 billion grocery business.

That changed on June 16 when Amazon announced its intention to acquire Whole Foods , the upscale supermarket chain that played a pivotal role in taking organic and natural foods mainstream. Whole Foods ( wfm ) itself may have been under duress, pressured by an activist investor and softening sales, but the healthy-food movement and the meticulously curated store experience that it pioneered is alive and well. Amazon is placing its bet on the future of the food industry, says Errol Schweizer, a former Whole Foods executive who is now an industry adviser, and they see Whole Foods as the leadership.

Most Amazon watchers are focused on the some 450 stores the e-commerce behemoth scoops up in the deal. These brick-and-mortar locations instantly give it a national physical presence, as well as a network of mini distribution centers for fresh produceby far the most challenging part of the grocery delivery business because of spoilage and the fragility of fruits and vegetables. (Upon news of the bid, grocery stocks took a nosedive accordingly.)

But Amazon isnt just trying to change how we buy groceries. Remember the companys original disruption: bookselling. Jeff Bezos not only shifted how and where books were sold; he also changed how they were made, by forcing publishers, authors, and everybody else along the book supply chain to cut their costs. The same thing could very well happen in food, and the outcome for food manufacturers could be as dire it was for book publishers. I would be terrified if I were a consumer packaged-goods company right now, says Benzi Ronen, CEO and founder of food hub management software startup Farmigo. Indeed, packaged-goods producers businesses are already under stress, with manufactured-food volumes at large companies declining 4% this year, as consumers seek out less-processed fare. And on the long-shot chance that Walmart ( wmt ) , playing defense, swoops in with a bigger bid, the same pressures will still be in play.

The overlooked asset Amazon gets in the deal is Whole Foods 365 house brandone of the most coveted in the organic and natural space, private label and otherwise. This is not your mothers generic box of cornflakes, with its bad design and perceived quality issues. A Piper Jaffray survey last spring found that 365 is customers favorite organic-food brand, ahead of premium names like Kelloggs-owned Kashi and General Mills Annies. The 365 brand is virtually unavailable online, but that will change if Amazon is smart about it. The opportunity to use the 365 brand as a mainstay of their online offering is really profound, says Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard. It puts a huge amount of pressure on branded food sales.

Amazon has tried to develop its own private label in food for years. In 2016 it rolled out its Happy Belly coffee, Mama Bear baby food, and Wickedly Prime snacks. These brands are available only to Amazon Prime members, who pay $99 a year for free two-day shipping, among a litany of other benefits. In a sign of how powerful its private label can be, analytics company 1010data found that for a 12-month period ending last year, 94% of all batteries sold online went through Amazon sites, and Amazons own brand made up about a third of all online battery sales. Its Amazon Elements baby wipes, introduced in 2014, have managed to capture 16% of online market share, despite being available only to Prime members.

Amazon and Whole Foods might seem like they are on opposite ends of the retail spectruma relatively small, high-end grocer vs. the massive e-commerce Everything Storebut they overlap in the power of their brands. Thats a rarity for a purveyor of food. Under the old model of food retailing, the brand you trusted was the manufacturer, Ronen says. Today you go onto Amazon and filter everything by whats Prime. Similarly, Whole Foods acts as a curator for shoppers by banning ingredients like saccharin and bleached flour from the products it sells. Together, the two trusted brands should create an even more powerful one. That could fundamentally alter the way grocery aisles lookand even make the aisles themselves obsolete.

A version of this article appears in the Jul. 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline "The Deal That Made an Industry Shudder."

Originally posted here:

Why Amazon's Whole Foods Deal Is Terrifying Food Makers - Fortune

As a longtime farmer, I work hard to ensure that food I sell with a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified organic logo lives up to that labels stringent standards. And I know the vast majority of organic farmers, processors, and handlers are equally committed to adhering to those high standards. The value of our business depends on customers trusting that they get what they pay for.

Thats why Ive been infuriated and troubled by recent investigative reports revealing gaps in the organic certification process. These articles have suggested that milk from a major domestic producer as well as imported corn and soybeans have been sold as certified organic, even though they reportedly failed to meet the USDA standards for that coveted label.

Stories like this should sound an alarm for Congress and the USDA. Failing to uphold the organic standards could blow a hole in one of the fastest-growing areas of agriculture. Inaction also harms certified organic farmers who are helping to grow the rural economy in states like mine by using the label to draw buyers and remain competitive.

Meeting organic certification standards costs farmers time and money. For instance, Abby Sadauckus and Jake Galle raise a variety of certified organic livestock at Apple Creek Farm in Bowdoinham, Maine. Among their expenses for meeting USDA standards are organic feed for their livestockwhich costs them about 50 percent more than conventional grainannual certification fees, and inspections.

When we allow rule-breakers to sow seeds of doubt about the organic labels integrity, it hurts farmers like Abby and Jake who are committed to organic practices. It also jeopardizes the future of the industry as a whole. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for certified organic products because they value the sustainable practices that go into thembut only if we can keep their trust.

While maintaining the integrity of the USDA organic label wont require a total change of the third-party certification system, a number of steps are needed to strengthen the system.

One is establishing clearer standards. Too many grey areas have allowed for their inconsistent and widely varying application. A new organic animal welfare rule, for example, would clearly spell out how livestock and chickens should be treated to ensure their health and well-being throughout life, including transport and slaughter. In the making for about a decade now, this rule was recently delayed by the Trump Administration right before going into effect.

Its also clear that USDA must strengthen its oversight of the organic certification process, and they need the resources to do so.

The agency charged with this responsibilitythe National Organic Programhas a paltry budget compared to the size of the industry. And things could get even worse. The Trump Administrations budget proposal would cut the agency by 11 percent and leave three vacant positions unfilled.

Last month, I had the chance to ask Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue about those cuts. While I appreciate his pledge to double down on enforcement, I dont know how it can be done with fewer resources.

The budget proposal also eliminates funding for the Organic Transition Program and the Organic Cost-Share Program, both of which are vital to helping farmers make the transition to certified organic production.

Amid a draconian budget proposal that hits many people very hard, these cuts may seem insignificant. But to me they seem especially foolish and shortsighted. Organic food is arguably the biggest market opportunity in our agricultural economy right now. The Organic Trade Association just reported another record-breaking year for the industry, growing more than 8 percent and posting $43 billion in 2016 sales.

These sales benefit certified organic farmers who have reported increased revenue and new jobs in rural economies that very much need them. But keeping up this positive trend means maintaining the integrity of the organic labelsomething the Trump Administration and my colleagues in Congress would be wise to get behind.

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture and owns Turner Farm, which grows certified organic vegetables, herbs, and flowers, and produces pasture-raised beef and pork.

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Rep. Chellie Pingree: We Must Act to Protect Integrity of the Certified Organic Label - Civil Eats

"We are losing them. They are getting out of our shops, out of our brands. They are going for food without the food industry. Not only without us, but maybe against us," he said.

Danone has bought U.S. organic food producer WhiteWave in a $12.5 billion (9.87 billion pounds) deal, bringing the company more into line with healthier eating trends.

The deal also aims to boost growth at Danone, whose shares trade at a discount to rivals. The company's depressed valuation was highlighted this week as a reason for it being touted as a potential bid target.

Faber told Reuters that Danone, which has no large controlling shareholder, was "no more and no less than usual" vulnerable to a possible takeover bid.

Danone is seeking to build on the WhiteWave deal with a campaign to promote itself as a leader in terms of healthy eating habits.

"The global industrial food system is reaching its limits," Faber told Reuters in a phone interview before his speech in Berlin. He said evidence of this included obesity and malnutrition, wasting water and food, soil depletion, and climate change.

"Everywhere people want to regain control over their food," said Faber, a rock climber and campaigner for corporate social responsibility.

BUYING INTO THE FUTURE

WhiteWave's products have outsold mainstream packaged food businesses in recent years, highlighting the consumer shift toward natural foods and healthier eating. The deal should also help Danone to cope with tougher market conditions in dairy products in Europe, and babyfood in China.

WhiteWave makes Danone the world's biggest producer of organic food and gives it a stronger foothold in North America, which is becoming its biggest market, accounting for $6 billion, or around 25 percent of group sales against 13 percent previously.

Faber said he hoped the new Danone signature would help to address a general consumer mistrust of big, corporate brands.

"Small brands communicate on their intentions, they are activists. It is key that big brands also state their intentions," he said.

Faber, the first Danone CEO from outside the founding Riboud family, is pushing on with a dual economic and social agenda, which - like that of many blue-chip companies - aims to not only boost shareholder value and profits but also meet other targets on the environment and social policies.

"The big risk is to avoid transforming ourselves and end up only cutting costs to return cash to shareholders," he said.

A pledge at the annual shareholder meeting in April for Danone to be certified as a for-profit corporation that commits to positive social and environmental goals - was in line with that strategy, he said.

BID TALK

Bid speculation around Danone pushed its shares sharply higher this week. Broker Exane said it could be an acquisition target for Kraft Heinz, also citing PepsiCo and Coca Cola as credible suitors.

Analysts at Berenberg wrote in a research note that investors would need concrete evidence of Danone's progress in its new areas.

"We believe investors will need to see further evidence of organic growth and margin momentum to agree with the CEO that Danone is 'uniquely placed to embrace the food revolution' and for its valuation discount to the sector to close fully."

Faber is confident Danone will deliver. "I am absolutely convinced our strategy creates value for the long-term but also the short-term," he said, adding he expected sales growth to improve in the third quarter.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, additional reporting by Emma Thomasson in Berlin; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Jane Merriman)

Continued here:

Danone Looks to Ride Healthy Food Revolution Wave - New York Times

Whole Foods Buy Out May Increase Sales of Organic and Non-GMO Food

The way food is being marketed and sold to consumers is changing, and this will have an impact on farmers and food producers. The purchase of Whole Foods by Amazon is just the beginning of a revolution in the food retailing industry. According to Richard Feinberg, professor of consumer science at Purdue, It is difficult to overstate the impact that this is going to have in the grocery industry.

Feinberg says Amazon has the ability to deliver food to people quickly, no matter where they are. Amazon brings a technology and distribution ability that no grocery retailer has. This will allow Whole Foods to do what it does, but better and more profitably. Grocery chains like Kroger, Target, and Wal-Mart are not ready for what Amazon brings to the table with the new and improved Whole Foods.

With the purchase of Whole Foods, Amazon will now be able to do that with the unique food products Whole Foods has. Whole Foods is a chain that does not sell GMO food products and stresses organic, antibiotic free, and less processed food items. Amazon will now have the ability to offer and deliver those kind of products anywhere. Whole Foods currently has 430 stories, but after the acquisition, they will have 350 million stores because they will be on every desktop, Feinberg says. About 50 percent of U.S. households have an Amazon Prime membership. Prime membership for groceries cements a relationship with a grocery store, and it encourages members who have not shopped there to shop in Whole Foods.

Feinberg says other retailers will be quick to react and adapt, Other food retailers will have to make changes or disappear. He added that Amazons goal is to be bigger than Wal-Mart in the food business. He predicts this change will come quickly, within the next 3 to 5 years.

Feinberg also says that Amazon has a test store called Amazon Go in Seattle that is displaying how Amazon does groceries. Two features are significant, Customers swipe their Amazon Prime Card when they enter. When they take something off the shelf and put it in their cart, it registers in their account. If they put the item back it, takes it off their account. When they walk out of the store, the payment is instantaneous. No more waiting to check out, which is the biggest complaint that consumers have of grocery stores.

Read the original here:

Whole Foods Buy Out May Increase Sales of Organic and Non-GMO Food - Hoosier Ag Today

When the news broke last Friday morning that online retailer Amazon had purchased organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market for a cool $13.7 billion, the jokes immediately began to fly. Several people tweeted that maybe Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had accidentally placed an order for Whole Foodsthe entire companyon his Amazon Echo. Comedian Stephen Colbert quipped on Twitter that Amazon bought Whole Foods, insuring farm to market to door to UPS to redelivery attempt to UPS to missed package to UPS back to market food!

But for many, this is a huge dealand dead serious. If it happensand there are at least a few observers and a congressman who think the merger may violate antitrust lawsAmazons move into the grocery marketplace signals that the giant appears poised to realign consumer habits around how we buy quinoa, cereal, and meat in precisely the same way it changed the way we buy books, clothes, and detergent.

That prospect sent shockwaves through the set-in-its-ways grocery industry, wreaking havoc on the stocks of brick-and-mortar food retailers like Walmart, Target, and Kroger. (Kroger saw its stocks plummet an unbelievable 28 percent Thursday and Friday.)

This is the first step to changing just how society shops for food in general, says Mike Lee, a product consultant and founder of The Future Market.

And, provided the sale doesnt face antitrust challenges, a successful merger of the two companies will likely be a mixed bag for the sustainable food movement in America.

Food Retail is Shifting Toward Healthy, Sustainable

Whether its a trend or shift that is here to stay, food that is perceived to be better for people and the planet is hot. The AmazonWhole Foods deal confirms what organic and other natural food sales trends have been showing us for years. According to the Organic Trade Association, Americans spent $43 billion on organic foods in 2016an increase of more than eight percent over the previous year. And Whole Foods has positioned itself as an alternative to the mainstream, even as it has worked to reach an increasingly mainstream audience over the last decade. And since the hedge fund Jana Partners upped its stake in Amazon in April, a move like this has been on the horizon.

Several CEOs of natural and organic brandseven the companies direct competitorssaid the merger validated their core principles, as they double-down on differentiating themselves.

Bentley Hall, CEO of online grocery-delivery service Good Eggs, shared an internal memo that includes the sentiment The game is on and I am honestly excited and honored to compete against such a worthy new opponent.

Gunnar Lovelace, co-founder of online food retailer Thrive Marketa retailer selling only organic, non-GMO products onlinesays his executive team was not in panic mode Friday morning. Instead, he said the company had recommitted to its principles of high-quality food, environmental sustainability, and fair labor standards in a way they feel goes above and beyond Whole Foods.

Thats a very different value proposition to the consumer who wants value and conveniencebut also wants real alignment with doing better in the world, he says. [Disclosure: The author has in the past worked as a writer for Thrive Markets blog and has written a feature for Whole Foods Magazine.]

Increased Access to Healthy Food

Though the numbers have never been made public, analysts estimate that more than 50 million Americans, from all walks of life, pay for Amazon Prime. By joining forces with an organic grocer like Whole Foods, Amazon is poised to bring natural and organic food directly to more Americans than ever, at prices that could be more competitive with conventional foods. Reports are already surfacing to this effect. Bloomberg is reporting that Amazon wants to shed Whole Foods Whole Paycheck image and make it more competitive with larger retailers like Walmart. If this happens, affordable organic food could become the rule, rather than the exceptionand find its way into more kitchens than ever.

This includes those of many low-income Americans who lack access to affordable, healthy food. Already, John Foraker, CEO of organic food company Annies, has called on Jeff Bezos to commit to ending food desertsurban and rural neighborhoods containing few healthy food optionsby 2027.

The ability for low-income Americans to use supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) benefits online could assist this cause immensely. The United States Department of Agriculture is piloting a program, expected to launch in early 2018, allowing SNAP recipients in seven states to use their benefit to buy food online. Amazon is one of the retailers selected for the program.

Amazon Could Singlehandedly Transform Our Food System

Chef Alice Waters, a leader in the good food movement, expressed her hope for the merger in a strategically crafted open letter to Bezos on Friday.

You have an unprecedented opportunity to change our food system overnight: It is time to demand that produce comes from farmers who are taking care of the land, to require meat and seafood to come from operations that are not depleting natural resources, and to support the entrepreneurial endeavors of those American farmers and food makers who do not enjoy federal subsidies, she wrote.

Its time to do the right thing for our country, our farmers, and our planet, she continued. And were all here to help you do it!

Of course, by essentially asking Amazon to bring its standards up, however, Waters goal may be at odds with the idea of bringing prices of this kind of food down for consumers.

Concerns Abound

If an AmazonWhole Foods deal is allowed to go through, every food retailerbig-box stores, online retailers, and even farmers marketswill feel the crunch, says Future Markets Lee. Meal-kit delivery services like Blue Apron and Plated could suffer the most in the short term. Swallowing up lifestyle services like these would be easy pickings for the new grocery behemoth, Lee says, given Whole Foods access to quality food and Amazons logistics prowess.

According to Barry C. Lynn, Director of the Open Markets Program at New America, thats too much power for one corporation. Lynns organization condemned the deal Friday, calling it anti-competitive and asking regulators to reject the merger.

This private corporation already dominates every corner of online commerce, and uses its power to set terms and prices for many of the most important products Americans buy or sell to one another, Lynn said in a statement. Now Amazon is exploiting that advantage to take over physical retail.

While he does think anti-trust regulators must be vigilant, Parke Wilde, associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, suggested the combined company is unlikely to be able to control prices as a monopolist does. In a healthy food system, he says, smaller farms and retailers would play a growing role, and he has mixed feelings about a merger of major corporations.

We should never forget that these are big corporations, pursuing their own profits foremost, but I still see some potential in a merger of Amazon and Whole Foods, Parke said.

For others, the deal could create a labor war. Bloomberg reported over the weekend that Amazon may be planning to lay off Whole Foods cashiers and replace them with machines. But beyond in-store employees, Michele Simon, the executive director of the Plant-Based Foods Association and author of Appetite for Profit, worries about the additional pressures being placed on farmers and food manufacturers to lower prices at a time when most of our food prices are not reflective of their true cost.

The driving down of food prices could come at a cost to farmers and every worker throughout the supply chain, she told Civil Eats.

And even as demand for organic food increases in America, less than 1 percent of domestic fields are certified organicand when domestic demand outstrips domestic supply, the practices that underlie USDA Organic-certified foods are sometimes put at risk. Expanding the supply of U.S.-grown organic foods is hampered by federal incentives that give the upper hand to conventionally grown food. So even if tens of millions more Americans begin to demand more humane and environmentally friendly food, the supplyat least here in the U.S.will likely fall short.

We still need a host of policy reforms to fix this problem, Simon said. Will Amazon and Whole Foods join us in that effort? I hope so.

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Will the Amazon-Whole Foods Deal Mean Better Food for All? - Civil Eats

Earlier this month, the North Florida School of Special Education (NFSSE) announced a new partnership with The Arc Jacksonville Village, which would bring organic fruits, vegetables and herbs grown at the schools farm into the residential campus dining hall.

More than 120 adults over the age of 18 with diagnoses including Down syndrome, autism, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, call The Arc Jacksonville Village home.

Debbie Johnson, board member at The Arc Jacksonville, said prior to the partnership with NFSSE, residents were fed by a full-time chef.

We have been in operations at the village for a year and we were evaluating the cost effectiveness of the food service program here, she said. During those series of conversations, we talked to the NFSSE because we knew about their Berry Good Farms culinary program.

NFSSE launched Berry Good Farms in 2011 and it not only provides sustainable food, it serves as a training opportunity for students who are transitioning out of the school, as well as compensated employment for post-graduates.

Johnson said the partnership came out of several conversations with Sally Hazelip, executive director of NFSSE.

We felt that because of the experience the school had with a culinary program that what theyd offer here would be delicious, healthy meals for our residents and that they would offer these quality meals at an affordable price, she said. We saw an opportunity for the school to come here and expand their Berry Good Farms program.

In addition to providing meals to The Arc Jacksonville Village residents, NFSSE will offer a culinary program starting in August.

We want to teach kids how to function in the kitchen as well as learn culinary skills, Hazelip said. The culinary school will be open to The Arc residents and our own students.

The Berry Good Farms launched On the Gos food truck in 2015 as a compensated employment opportunity for students.

Hazelip said the caf at The Arc Jacksonville Village will be an additional opportunity for compensation.

Within a year, well have about 15 to 20 students who will work there and get paid to cook in the afternoons, she said. Well have a caf manager, assistant manager, catering and food truck manager who will be housed there to supervise students.

Johnson said the partnership between the two entities is a natural fit.

Theres a common thread with whom we serve and, oftentimes, NFSSE students come and live here at our village, she said. Over the years, there have been other partnerships and things weve done together, and I can almost say with 100 percent certainty that this isnt the last partnership with the school.

Johnson anticipates expanding the culinary program in the future.

If we see that many of our residents and students are interested in the program, then itll get bigger, she said. If our residents learn that youre not simply watering a leafy plant, but thats a sustainable source of food, that education and awareness is so valuable.

Hazelip said the culinary program is another opportunity that has been given to students.

Whats offered here is so different than 50 years ago and our students are given opportunities they never would have had, she said. Its a gift to have a kitchen that we didnt have to raise money to build and that we can provide this service.

Hazelip added, Im excited for the possibilities of whats to happen in the next year.

Moving forward, Hazelip said volunteers will be crucial to the success of the caf and culinary program at The Arc Jacksonville Village.

Volunteers are an important aspect because we really believe so much in reverse inclusion, which means that instead of typical inclusion where our students are included in activities, people come to us, she said. Id encourage people to volunteer and work alongside our students to give them assistance reading a recipe and using a knife.

To volunteer, contact Ellen Hiser, director of Berry Good Farms, at (904) 724-8323 or ehiser@northfloridaschool.org.

Ann Friedman: (904) 359-4619

The rest is here:

The Arc partners with special education school to bring organic ... - Florida Times-Union

A customer shops at a Whole Foods Market on Oct. 15, 2014 in San Francisco.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Whole Foods Market founder John Mackey was livid. Theyre greedy bastards, Mackey spouted to Texas Monthly in April after the investment management firm Jana Partners, Whole Foods second-biggest shareholder, signaled its intention to sell off his company. These people, they just want to sell Whole Foods Market and make hundreds of millions of dollars, and they have to know that Im going to resist that. Whole Foods is my baby, Mackey declared. Im going to protect my kid, and theyve got to knock Daddy out if they want to take it over.

Yet justtwo months later, Mackey is selling his baby to Amazon for $13.7 billion, a dramatic denouement for a company that is deeply rooted in the hippie counterculture of the 1960s and 70s. Since its founding, Whole Foods has made its name bucking corporate conventional wisdomeven as it has come to epitomize the massive, often mercenary contradictions of Big Organic. The company sold organic foods long before any major supermarket chain thought it was worthwhile, and its thrived in part by defying the grocery industrys insistence on centralized distribution and standardization.

Now the organic supermarket pioneer will be owned by one of the most brutally efficient and standardizedretailers in the world, a company with a relentless focus on selling things cheaper and faster.

The purchase is a dramatic leap for Amazon into brick-and-mortar commerce. So far, the company has only launched a handful of grocery pick-up locations and storefronts for selling books. But the acquisition of Whole Foods vastly expands Amazons share of the grocery trade, a move that should raise deep concerns about a marketplace already dominated by a handful of massive retailers.(Disclosure: Slate is an Amazon affiliate; when you click on an Amazon link from Slate, the magazine gets a cut of the proceeds from whatever you buy.)

But perhaps more significantly, it signals the end of a dream for Mackey and Whole Foods, and even for the entire organic food business. With more than 400 locations, Whole Foods has long ruled the organic marketplace. But unlike any other national retailer, it claims to be rooted in environmentalism and the hippie movement of the 1970s. Its not that Whole Foods didnt care about profits. Mackey has long contended that Whole Foods began as a company seeking to make our country and world a better place to live by recognizing human rights, food safety, and environmental deterioration were major concerns. But with its sale to Amazon, a company with a poor environmental track record, questionable labor practices, and limited experience selling organic food, Whole Foods has lost any credible link to its countercultural roots. Whatever Whole Foods will be able to say about itself now, it will be much harder for it to maintain its do-gooder image.

The modern organic food business started as a cottage industry of longhairs selling brown rice and tofu out of wooden barrels in small stores. In 1978, Mackey and his then-partner, Renee Lawson Hardy, launched one such store, a vegetarian grocery in a two-story house called SaferWay. The name spoofed Safeway and indicted the environmental dangers of supermarket chains reliance on large-scale agribusiness and wasteful production methods.Two years later, Mackey merged the store with a competitor to form a new business he and his partners would call Whole Foods Market. In the next decade, the store expanded throughout Texas and into other states, and by the start of the 90s, it had become the highest-volume seller of organic food in the country.

Whole Foods growth was rapid. In 1992, the company became the first ever publicly traded organic foods retailer. The organic food marketplace transformed into a major industry with Whole Foods at its helm. Yet Mackey and Whole Foods insisted their company wasnt only interested in profits. The companys Declaration of Interdependence, a mission statement of its core values, contains sections on Team Member Happiness and Environmental Stewardship. With missionary zeal, Mackey has devoted himself to promoting conscious capitalism in a popular 2013 book by that title and in a series of CEO summits he organizes.

Mackeys politics havent always aligned with Whole Foods stated values of conscious capitalism, of course. In recent years, hes speciously criticized the Affordable Care Act as fascist, and hes also remarked that climate change isnt necessarily bad. And for all its public statements endorsing employee satisfaction, Whole Foods has long opposed workers efforts to unionize.

Despite Mackeys libertarian leanings, Whole Foods sets itself apart from other chains.

Yet Whole Foods remains one of the most environmentally responsible retailers in the country, ranking highly on a variety of sustainability metrics. Whole Foods also offers its employees some unusual freedoms. Individual stores and their departments have considerable power to make purchasing decisions, and local managers enjoy a level of discretion unheard of at most chain stores. Employees have major input in hiring and get to vote to approve or reject new co-workers whove completed a trial period. Despite Mackeys libertarian leanings, Whole Foods sets itself apart from other chains through these practices.

Will Whole Foods be able to retain its distinctive culture once this deal is finalized? While Amazon says it wants to keep Whole Foods as is, its impossible not to wonder how Amazon's corporate culture might rub off, especially as the store struggles to compete with other sellers of organic products such as Trader Joes, German discounters such as Aldi and Lidl, and even Walmart and conventional supermarkets.

While deeply objectionable, Whole Foods efforts to discourage unionization seem timid in comparison to Amazons proud endorsement of unreasonably high expectations with uncompensated overtime, combative meetings, and encouraging employees to anonymously report each others mistakes to management. Working conditions in Amazons shipping facilities appear just as bad, if not worse. It seems unlikely that Amazons cutthroat managerial approach will tolerate Whole Foods employees long-held freedoms and team leaders decentralized autonomy for long.

The sale also jeopardizes Whole Foods devotion to environmental stewardship. Amazons Web Services subsidiary is one of the dirtiest and least transparent companies in the sector, far behind its major competitors, with zero reporting of its energy or environmental footprint to any source or stakeholder, according to a 2014 report by Greenpeace.If Amazon doesnt value sustainability, will it accept the considerable expense and effort that Whole Foods devotes to environmental stewardship?

Top Comment

When did Whole Foods have a do-gooder reputation? It's always been a symbol of elitism. (I can say that since I shop there occasionally, but not exclusively.) More...

After six consecutive quarters of losses, Whole Foods had recently begun to make its own changes in the composition of its board and executive team. But such changes are trivial compared to being swallowed by the worlds largest online retailer.With its relentless efficiency standards, Amazon is poised to radically transform not only the pioneering organic chain but the entire brick-and-mortar grocery business.

Whole Foods may have been John Mackeys baby, the object of his affection he raised from infancy. But once this sale is completed, Amazon will be its legal guardian and Whole Foods will be the online retailers stepchild. Mackey and Whole Foods already debatable claims of conscious capitalism now seem even more dubious.

Read the original:

So Much for Conscious Capitalism - Slate Magazine

Amazons planned purchase of high end grocery chain Whole Foods introduces a lot of questions - many of them around technology, delivery, and the future of retail. Its also a time to consider what, exactly, the Whole Foods value proposition is. After all, were told that Whole Foods seeks the finest organic food, but not all their customers have been fully satisfied with what they get in return for their dollars.

By and large, when folks pay more for food, they want it to taste better. Whatever labels we read about sustainability or endorsements about health, the thing that we always can judge for ourselves is how good a food tastes. And many people claim that organic, whatever its other virtues, does taste better.

Others disagree, and the science is mixed.

Studies show that some organic foods can have a different flavor, due to factors like how plants respond to environmental stress, but often differences are subtle and may fade away in the face of other factors like long transportation to reach stores. Plus, some organic ingredients go into processed foods in small quantities where they add almost no distinct flavor at all.

The practical implications of organic flavor appeared in a recent Washington Post investigation of mislabeled food imports. Shipments started out conventional, yet somewhere in the paper trail received an organic label. It was a multi-million dollar fraud, made possible because that label provided the only way for shoppers to know they were eating organic - they couldnt taste a difference for themselves.

We didnt have to move this far away from using our senses to know our food. In Vermont, organic certifiers provide truthful labeling while also supporting a better consumer experience. They encourage local organic food, eaten at the peak of flavor, or plant varieties that prize flavor over the ability to withstand cross-country transportation, or home gardeners who grow the freshest food possible in exactly the varieties they want. Its reasonable to expect food produced in a thoughtful, sustainable way to offer pleasure that goes beyond reading the fine print on a certification label.

All of which brings us back around to the idea that the simplest reason to buy premium foods is because they taste better - and when they dont, thats a problem. This concept doesnt take away from our loftier ideals - it supports them. And who doesnt want food to be delicious?

Read the rest here:

Jordan: Organic Food Spotlight - Vermont Public Radio