Whole Foods CEO: Healthy food is affordable necessity

(USA Today) Time flies when you're running one of the world's most profitable grocery chains. Whole Foods, the organic and natural foods supermarket trendsetter, turns 30 on Sept. 20. (Click HERE for full story.)

Coming Soon: Theaters, Airplanes to Post Calories

(The Wall Street Journal) Regulators' appetite for calorie counts is about to extend beyond restaurants to thousands of other places that offer food, including airplanes, movie theaters and convenience stores.

The expansion stems from provisions in the health-care overhaul enacted in March. The government wants calorie listings posted to make it easier for consumers to select healthier options, and the restaurant industry backed the move so it could avoid a patchwork of local ordinances that are developing.

So far, the expansion of the calorie counts beyond restaurants has drawn praise from nutrition advocates but push-back from industries that say the original legislation was never intended to hit them.

"People don't go to movie theaters for the primary purpose of eating," said Gary Klein, a vice president for a group representing theater owners. "Why aren't ballparks covered? You think the food served at ballparks is healthy?"

The health-care law said chain restaurants with 20 locations or more are required to post the caloric information on their menus. That requirement took effect when President Barack Obama signed the law, but the places that serve food aren't expected to begin complying until penalties kick in next year.

In preliminary guidelines released last week, the Food and Drug Administration said the scope of the law stretches beyond restaurants to encompass airlines, trains, grocery-store food courts, movie theaters and convenience stores that qualify as chains. Within grocery stores, the agency said, it is considering including salad bars, store bakeries, pizza bars and delicatessens. Stadiums aren't listed since they aren't chains.

Journal Community

Vote: Should calorie counts be added to more menus?

The FDA plans to make official who is covered, and how, in December.

For consumers, the change marks the next installment of nutrition labeling requirements that swept across the packaged food industry in the 1990s. About 20 cities or states have enacted or passed local ordinances requiring calorie postings on menus since New York City pioneered the requirement in 2008.

Health advocates say the change could be a powerful tool in fighting the obesity epidemic, a top initiative in Washington since first lady Michelle Obama made childhood obesity her signature cause in February.

"Everybody's going to be a little bit better informed, and that's a good thing," said Lou Sheetz, executive vice president at Sheetz Inc., an Altoona, Pa., convenience store chain with 380 outlets in six states.

The chain is preparing to post calorie information at kiosks where customers order food. "In all likelihood, it's going to have a negative impact on those items that had a higher calorie count than people thought," said Mr. Sheetz. But that will be offset by higher sales of healthier items, he predicted.

Research has shown mixed results on whether New York City's requirement has prompted consumers to select healthier foods. A 2009 study published in the journal Health Affairs didn't find evidence that menu labeling influenced the total number of calories purchased by New York residents. A Stanford University study of Starbucks outlets in New York City found that average calories per transaction fell by 6% after menu listings took effect.

Some industries that have been largely untouched by the local ordinances are trying to chip away at the national requirement before it takes effect.

"We're not restaurants," said Erik Lieberman, regulatory counsel for the Food Marketing Institute, the grocery store industry's main trade group. "The vast majority of supermarket consumers are not consuming the food they purchased at the store within the store."

The health law requires the calorie listing to be clear and conspicuous—and next to the name of the food—but details remain to be worked out by the FDA.

For industries that don't necessarily use menus, the requirements could pose a new dilemma. Americans Airlines Inc. says it doesn't offer printed menus in the main cabin for international flights, where traditional meal service often is still available, though it has them for first-class passengers.

Julie Fields, director of government relations at the National Association of Convenience Stores, says her members are puzzled about how to label offerings that don't have menus, such as hot dogs that rotate in counter-top cases.

The early guidelines suggest grocery chains could have to post caloric contents for bulk foods sold in supermarket aisles, sandwiches assembled at the deli and fish sold at the seafood counter. Stores say it's nearly impossible to give useful information on calorie contents at salad bars because consumers determine their own portions.

Schnucks, a 105-location grocery chain based in St. Louis, Mo., says it's particularly concerned about bakery items, which it says most people wait until they get home to eat.

"Grocery customers, in the main, have not asked for this additional effort, so you would have to wonder why they would have to pay for the effort," said Lori Willis, a spokeswoman for the chain.

Timesavers to manager your social media  marketing

(Bloomberg) When it comes to social media marketing, one of the biggest fears small business owners have is the time commitment. Yes, the majority of sites have no hard costs associated with them, but time is money. (Click HERE for full story.)

WaWa gas stations are coming to Central Florida, Tampa Bay

(St. Petersburg Times) WaWa, a Philadelphia area filling station chain that sets itself apart with better fresh food, is lining up sites for expanding into the Orlando and Tampa Bay areas. (Click HERE for full story.)

The Global Staying Power of Private Label

(nielsenwire) Shoppers around the world took many steps to stretch their budgets during the recession such as eating at home more frequently or cutting back on vacations.  While improving economies may prompt consumers to return to restaurants or take a vacation, one trend that looks likely to remain—and perhaps even grow—is the shift to private label goods. (Click HERE for full story.)

Grocery stores never close

(The Edmonton Journal) It’s two in the morning and your empty fridge can’t satisfy your hunger. What do you do? (Click HERE for full story.)

Electronic Mirrors Sell Lipstick and a Makeover
(The Wall Street Journal) Cosmetics aisles in supermarkets and drugstores are adding electronic makeover specialists with the help of an Israeli start-up.

Retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., France's Carrefour SA and Superdrug Stores PLC in Britain are testing EZface Inc.'s "virtual mirrors" in their stores to simulate what makeup and hair dye would look like on shoppers. Faced with stiff competition from specialist cosmetics stores including Sephora, where shoppers get to try on products before buying them, retailers are looking for new ways to boost sales and reduce damaged inventory from opened packaging by consumers experimenting with products.

The virtual mirror kiosks are designed to be easy to use. A person stands in front of the screen and an internal camera takes a picture. Then the person scans the bar codes of various cosmetics—such as mascara, foundation, eye shadow, blush and lip gloss—and each automatically appears on the appropriate part of the face. A list on the right side of the screen reminds the person what products she is virtually testing. The user can print out the image, send it by email, or post it on Facebook.

The new technology could help consumers overcome their hesitation in splurging on another tube of lipstick or daring a new hair color. "Every lady has a drawer full of the wrong makeup products," said Ruth Gal, the co-founder of EZface.

EZface is one of several start-ups attempting to transform the beauty aisle. EZface—powered by IBM technology—debuted in two Wal-Mart stores last year. Now the Bentonville, Ark.,-based retail giant is testing 40 of the makeup machines in 10 stores across the U.S.

Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido Co. earlier this year unveiled its digital cosmetics mirror at a Tokyo department store. Meanwhile, San Diego start-up Photometria Inc. has developed an online virtual mirror called Taaz, which allows users to virtually sample colored contact lenses and new hairstyles in addition to makeup.

EZface's presence in the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, has given it an early lead. Carrefour tested its first EZface this week as part of its revitalizing its French supercenters.

Alliance Boots PLC just completed a six-month trial of the kiosk in three of its British drugstores using Boots-branded cosmetics. Boots said it has no immediate plans for a roll-out.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said that cosmetics sales in the stores equipped with EZface technology are "good" but "it's too early to tell if activity can be tied directly to EZface." The company declined to provide further information.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer by sales, hopes virtual-mirror technology could help increase sales and reduce returns. Wal-Mart stores don't have samples in their cosmetics aisles, unlike department stores and cosmetics chains. Consumers frustrated by not being able to try on makeup often decide not to buy the product—or open a package, resulting in damaged inventory for the company.

Making in-store shopping more interactive is a goal for many retailers. Sunglass Hut, a division of Luxottica Group SpA, installed digital photo booths in some of its flagship stores in cities such as New York and London last year. Shoppers can snap a digital picture trying on a pair of shades and send the image to their friends or to a social-networking site.

Yet the technology of the cosmetics kiosks is more complicated than for other products. Sunglass brand Ray-Ban has a virtual mirror function on its website—the image of the eyewear is simply layered on a user's photo.

Unlike with sunglasses, virtual mirrors for makeup must take into account attributes such as skin tone, glossiness of the product and lighting to get a realistic image. Other more basic Internet applications require shoppers to identify where facial features such as the eyes and mouth are, or overlay an image of a wig to simulate a different hair color.

Cosmetics companies are pushing the virtual mirror initiatives. L'Oréal SA, the world's largest cosmetics company by sales, put EZface's Internet application on the websites of two of its brands, L'Oréal Paris and Maybelline, for consumers to play with the technology.

But L'Oréal believes EZface's impact is greater in-store. In June, the company set up kiosks at a consumer-goods and retail conference in London to try to get more retail clients—and increase sales of their mass-market brands. "That's where you have the strongest impulse to purchase—where you have to give the final impetus," said Hal Kimber, L'Oréal's head of customer relationship management and Internet.

EZface's Ms. Gal, who came up with the idea to virtually test makeup 10 years ago, said the in-store virtual mirrors allows EZface to control the environment needed for a better image, by using a high-quality camera and controlled lighting.

With the cosmetics virtual mirror now rolling out, Ms. Gal turned her attention to hair. EZface unveiled its first virtual mirror that samples hair color at the June retail and consumer-goods conference in London. The hair color kiosks could work in retail stores as well as salons, Ms. Gal said.

L'Oréal likes the idea. "Hair color searches on Google are massive," said Mr. Kimber.

Clean Sweep
(Supermarket News) A  side effect of last year's H1N1 flu pandemic and the hysteria and hypochondria that ensued was soaring sales of disinfecting cleaning wipes. (Click HERE for full story.)

13 Things in the New Orleans food culture changed by Hurricane Katrina
(The Times Picayune) Bruning's, Chateaubriand, René Bistrot, Bella Luna, Barrow's, Mandich, Christian's, Cobalt, Gabrielle, Michael's Mid-City Grill, United Bakery, Manuel's Hot Tamales, Crystal Preserves & Spicy Brown Mustard ... they're all gone. (Click HERE for full story.)

Nestlé Plans Ground Attack Over Coffee Beans
(The Wall Street Journal) From the lush Veracruz forests in Mexico all the way to Indonesia, Nestlé SA is cultivating a new investment: a $487 million global push to increase the quantity and quality of its coffee.

Nestlé—the Swiss company whose Nescafé instant coffee and upscale Nespresso brewing machines make it the world's largest coffee company—plans to train thousands of farmers over 10 years and provide them with new coffee trees. The company won't own the plantations or bind farmers into long-term contracts, but Chief Executive Paul Bulcke thinks the relationship it develops with the farmers will lead them to sell to Nestlé.

"We shouldn't just be the world's biggest coffee buyer, we should be involved upstream," says Mr. Bulcke, who was scheduled to present the company's plan in Mexico City on Friday. "We're doing it for better quality and securing our raw material."

The push comes as food companies such as Nestlé, Unilever and Kraft Foods Inc. struggle for better control of essential ingredients such as coffee, cocoa, wheat and milk. The effort has become more urgent in recent years, as volatile raw-material prices have wreaked havoc on margins, boosting profit one year, sinking it the next. Prices for coffee beans recently reached nearly 13-year highs because of bad weather.

Yet the coffee industry also faces long-term problems. Farmers persist with older trees that yield fewer and lower-quality beans. Nestlé, which makes pantry staples such as Kit-Kat chocolate bars, Häagen-Dazs ice cream and Nestea iced tea, this month predicted a "challenging" second half because of rising commodities prices.

Nestlé's coffee investment follows a similar move in cocoa last year. The company committed $106 million to replanting cocoa trees in Ivory Coast in West Africa with a more robust variety engineered by Nestlé's scientists. Nestlé in the past has had coffee-planting projects in countries such as Mexico, Thailand and the Philippines. But the new one will involve more than 10 times as many trees as the last.

Other companies also are wrestling for more control over their agricultural ingredients. France's LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton helps farmers for Champagne grapes with growing and harvesting to ensure supply for such brands as Veuve Clicquot and Dom Perignon.

Nestlé invented instant coffee in the 1930s to preserve a bumper Brazilian coffee harvest. Now, emerging markets are driving much of the growth in instant coffee. Consumers in countries such as China, Thailand and Mexico are becoming coffee drinkers via instant brew. Half of Nescafé sales now derive from emerging markets.

But Nestlé also is catering to high-quality coffee trends in more-affluent countries. Nespresso, a system of espresso machines using capsules of high-quality ground coffee, has propelled Nestlé into the lucrative and fast-growing premium coffee market.

Despite the high cost of this coffee—about 42 cents a shot—Nespresso survived cautious consumer spending during the economic downturn. That's because coffee drinkers saved money by brewing at home instead of going to a café. Nespresso sales rose 30% last year.

Nestlé's aim is for the new initiative to boost sales. To prepare for that, Nestlé is building its largest instant-coffee plant, outside Mexico City, which will produce jars of Nescafé for Mexico, Canada and the U.S. The coffee also will be used for Nestlé's high-end coffee.

Some of that coffee will start its journey in the coffee-growing region of Mexico's Veracruz state. Farmers are preparing for the harvest, which starts next month and runs until March.

In the Barrio de Guadalupe village in Veracruz, peasant farmers care for a special coffee crop. The 100,000 knee-high trees represent a new breed of plants that Nestlé developed by cross-breeding varieties in its research center in France. The plants have been developed for the region's climate to generate more beans, resist disease, and reach a midsize height that makes them easier to harvest by hand. The plantings in Veracruz essentially make up a pilot program that will spread globally.

"No other mainstream coffee roaster in the world is doing this, none," says Orlando García of Nestlé Commodities and Supply Development, based in Marysville, Ohio. His job is to look decades down the road and make sure the company has supplies in sufficient quantity and quality to continue making a variety of coffee products, including Nespresso pods.

Until recently, the outlook was poor for Mexican coffee farming and many farmers abandoned coffee when prices plummeted.

Now Nestlé is developing a new generation of robusta plants and arabica plants in Mexico. Of the 100,000 trees in the Veracruz plantation, 60% are robusta, or relatively inexpensive beans that make up the bulk of instant coffee, and 40% are arabica, which are used in higher-end coffee but can only be grown at high elevations, limiting their potential. They are just a tiny fraction of the 220 million plants that Nestlé will distribute to coffee growers world-wide over the next 10 years.

Some farmers worry that Nestlé's favoring of robusta beans is taking Mexico down the wrong path. Rather, they say, growers should seek higher-end markets, like those for organic arabica, which generate above-average prices.

"There has to be a balance," says Angelino Espinoza Mata, who heads a small coffee-growers' organization in the Huasteco region of Veracruz. "Each region has its own characteristics."

Despite the major investment in the new plants, Nestlé is not locking the recipients of the plantlets into contracts.

"It's not possible and it's not fair," says Mr. Bulcke, the Nestlé CEO. "We want to build a relationship where the farmer wants to sell to us."

To do that, part of the company's plan involves offering farming and harvesting advice to 10,000 farmers world-wide. Nestlé will also double the amount of coffee it buys directly, so that it buys directly from 170,000 growers.

Veracruz farmers seem ready to return the favor. Coffee-cooperative organizer Hildiberto Escobar says of the 1,000 producers he represents, 600 are working with Nestlé and intend to sell to the company.

"Price is important, but so is the attention and the commitment they have shown us," he says. "That certainty is very important."

A Family Brand With Big Dreams for Its Soy Milk
(The New York Times) The cola wars were so 20th century. Now, Madison Avenue is leading the charge in a series of battles involving food products that are meant to be perceived as healthier fare. (Click HERE for full story.)

(Denver Business Journal) Target Corp. said Tuesday it has redesigned four of its Denver-area stores and one in Greeley as part of an ongoing national effort, increasing fresh-food selections in their grocery departments. (Click HERE for full story.)

Costco Sees Malls As The Next Way To Grow Business
(The Wall Street Journal) Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) is taking on the role of mall anchor, moving into spaces once occupied by department stores that for decades reigned as the retail centers' big draws.

Costco plans "to accelerate" steps that will in essence put its mini-mall type stores into shopping centers, the warehouse club's co-founder and chairman, Jeff Brotman, said in an interview. Costco's stores, which can be the size of three football fields minus endzones, carry tens of thousands of items, ranging from tires to polo shirts to pigs feet.

So far, Costco has just dipped its toe in the water when it comes to locating stores in malls. But coming off the heels of last week's announcement of three-mall based Costcos - two to be built in what were traditional department stores - Brotman said his company is looking at several other sites, including a mall in Trumbull, Conn., to open Costco membership warehouse clubs. The approach dovetails with Costco's continued expansion of off-mall sites, which already number over 400 locations in the U.S.

Credit Suisse retail analyst Michael Exstein said Costco's stepping into malls "is representative of a longer term trend that is developing...As consumers' needs change and department stores continue to lose share, shopping centers will look to Costco and other high traffic formats as valuable anchors."

Costco's approach is a bit counter to the one being taken by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), which also wants to expand in urban areas, but has talked about reducing the size of its stores as an approach.

"Our preference is to never be in a mall or by a mall," Brotman said. "But in metro areas there just is not that much land, and we still want to expand. We will continue to penetrate areas" using the mall approach.

It doesn't hurt for Costco that malls are still losing tenants nearly three years into the recession, and the warehouse club has been one of the most relatively successful retailers during the period. "With no meaningful department store consolidation and a lot of weak players out there, mall owners are starting to think of alternatives to the traditional," Brotman said.

Costco does indeed have an ability to deliver, said Randy Brant, executive vice president at mall owner Macerich Co. (MAC), which has Costcos adjacent to two of its malls.

"Their average store does over $100 million a year in sales and there aren't many department stores that can do that, especially in this environment," Brant said. "The only downside is typically a customer making large purchases at Costco will get in their car and head home."

Customers do buy in bulk, often spending several hundred dollars on a single trip to a Costco.

The challenge for Costco can be making, or finding, room for stores that can run 150,000 square feet.

The retailer's latest plans are to gut a former Dillard's Inc. (DDS) location in a Sarasota, Fla., mall and put in a 145,000 square foot warehouse club. In Wheaton, Md., Costco is taking the second floor of a former Hecht's department store that has been closed since 2006. Hecht's was owned by May Department Stores, which merged with Macy's Inc. (M) a few years ago.

In Los Angeles, an approximately 146,000 square foot Costco is planned to anchor the proposed Village at Westfield Topanga, a mixed development of retail, hotel and office space. The developments are being done with mall owner Westfield Group.

Food That Looks So Messy, It's Irresistible
(The Wall Street Journal) Flip through TV channels or the pages of any magazine and you'll see glossy images of half-eaten sandwiches, broken bread sticks, stray herbs and scattered crumbs. And these days, that's just what food stylists want.

"Right now, people like messy," says Alison Attenborough, a New York-based food stylist who specializes in editorial work for clients, including Food & Wine magazine, New York magazine and cookbook publisher Clarkson Potter. "People are interested in small butchers, artisan producers, farmer's markets—a more handmade look."

The popularity of cooking shows, the eat-local movement and the growth of casual-dining restaurants are reshaping consumers' views of what makes food look appealing. Where making food look perfect was once a primary task of food stylists and photographers, the new challenge is making messy food look appetizing.

Once common practices, like using Vaseline to glue crumbs into holes in a slice of cake, have fallen out of favor at many magazines, says Delores Custer, a veteran food stylist and the author of "Food Styling: The Art of Preparing Food for the Camera." And stylists almost always use real ice cream instead of molding scoops out of shortening, corn syrup and powdered sugar. To achieve the perfect look, stylists would under-cook food to help it keep its shape, use hair products to add luster to grains of rice and apply powdered deodorant spray to produce a bloom on grapes or mist on a glass. These techniques are still in use, particularly in advertising, but are not as common as they were back in the 1980s, the heyday of the perfect-food look, Ms. Custer says.

At a recent Food & Wine photo shoot, Ms. Attenborough was making recipes by celebrity chef Tyler Florence for the magazine's October issue. She carefully assembled a cheeseburger so that the bacon and red onions would look like they were erupting from the bun. With a heat gun, she melted the cheese to make a corner of the slice dribble down. For a scallop appetizer, Ms. Attenborough intentionally left one fleck of parsley on the table, as if the cook had just finished applying the garnish and hadn't bothered to clean up.

Natural lighting is now the norm at many magazines, says Fredrika Stjärne, Food & Wine's director of photography. She says natural lighting and styling are ways to tone down digital photography, which can make things look super-real. But, she adds, the trend began before digital photography took hold.

Studio lighting is still in use, particularly in advertising. But even there, a more natural look has taken hold, says Robert Baiocco, executive creative director at advertising agency Grey Group, which has represented food brands such as Red Lobster, Smuckers and Pringles.

Whether for editorial or advertising purposes, the point of making natural food look appealing is to get people to buy the product, go out to eat or make a recipe. Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, says the effectiveness of the natural trend lies in its ability to invite the viewer in. "It might enable us more to put ourselves in the picture," he says.

In the lab, Dr. Wansink has studied factors that make food look appealing. In his book "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think," Dr. Wansink found that props and setting matter. People who ate a brownie served on white china thought it was tastier than one served on simple paper napkin—and they were willing to pay more for it. Another factor is color contrast. A plain red apple is not as appealing as a red apple with a green leaf, he says. And the brighter the image, the higher people's expectations for its flavor.

Still, food stylists aren't relying on science on the job and are more likely to go with their gut.

Ms. Attenborough recalled taking bites out of hundreds of Häagen Dazs ice cream bars to get the chocolate coating to crack in just the right way. She ended up cheating with a cookie cutter. "It was fun. I love Häagen Dazs ice cream," she says.

Loblaw Expands Peanut-Free Private Labels
(Supermarket News) Loblaw Cos. is highlighting its peanut-free President’s Choice and No Name private-label offerings this back-to-school season. Efforts appeal to the parents of one in every 50 Canadian children who has a peanut allergy. (Click HERE for full story.)

Lost in the supermarket

(TechFlash) There's no reason to get lost in the supermarket anymore. That's at least the case if you're perusing the aisles of four grocery stores in Michigan. Meijer, the Midwest grocery store chain, today unveiled a new mobile application called "Find-it" which allows shoppers to quickly locate everything from diapers to Doritos. (Click HERE for full story.)

P&G offers coupon booklet that saves money and environment

(DrugStore News) On Aug. 29, 55 million homes nationwide will receive newspapers that contain savings on a substantial amount of environmentally friendly products, giving consumers the opportunity to spare their cash while sparing the planet. (Click HERE for full story.)

FDA to give restaurants more time on calorie counts
(Reuters) U.S. health regulators plan to give restaurant companies more time to comply with new rules that require clear calorie and nutritional information on menus. (Click HERE for full story.)

'Wellness' Goes Mainstream
(Brandweek) An interest in "wellness" used to be something exotic. And to the extent consumers gave any thought to the concept, it was often defined simply as the absence of illness. But "wellness" is now very much a mainstream preoccupation, and one that's viewed more broadly as a marker for quality of life. (Click HERE for full story.)

Menards adding groceries to Apple Valley store mix

(Finance and Commerce) Menard Inc. said Tuesday that it is planning an expansion to its Apple Valley store that will include space for convenience grocery items such as frozen pizza, milk, boxed dinners, cereals, canned goods and snacks. (Click HERE for full story.)

AARP Says Brand-Name Drug Prices Up 8% in 2009
(The New York Times) A new report on retail prices of brand-name drugs shows the 217 products most used by older Americans increased by an average of 8.3 percent during 2009, the largest increase in years, even as inflation was negative. (Click HERE for full story.)