Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Whole Foods Tops List Of Companies Forced To Recall FoodFDA food safety database details all recalls since January 2014, from contamination to mislabeled packages

It’s been a rough month for food safety. In a matter of weeks, we managed to lose hummus, ice cream, and a motley collection of dairy products, all to listeria recalls. But even when food safety scares aren’t in the public consciousness, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is constantly keeping tabs on official recalls, tracking infections along with more benign food faux pas, such as mislabeled packages and “possible contamination.”

Vocativ analyzed the FDA’s food safety database, and discovered 737 recalls since January 2014. The vast majority of these recalls are due to either undeclared ingredients—allergens like milk, soy and nuts—or confirmed contamination:

Within the food industry, some companies appear to sell contaminated food more often than others. Whole Foods tops our list of offenders, with 26 store-brand products recalled since the beginning of 2014. (Whole Foods had not responded to our requests for comment by time of publication. UPDATE: Michael Silverman, a spokesperson for Whole Foods, responded to our inquiry via email: “We take the health and safety of our customers very seriously, and that can manifest in voluntary product recalls we may issue out of an abundance of caution.”)

In any case, it’s important to remember that the Whole Foods figures only accounts for about 3 percent of the total recalls issued during that time period. The data suggest that recalls tend to be spread out among many companies—we did not find a cluster of contaminated food within any one company.

But we did find a pretty damning cluster surrounding prepared foods. Since 2014, about 10 percent of recalls have involved so-called “convenience food,” or ready-made meals. After that, candies and spices appear to be the riskiest choices. Here’s a complete breakdown of recalls by product type:

There is no easy solution to preventing food contamination. As Phil Lempert writes in Forbes: “The reality is that we will always have strains of bacteria infecting our foods—no matter how stringent the food safety practices that are in place. A leaky pipe, someone’s loose hair, or an insect that makes its way into the facility.”

But we can further empower the FDA to crack down on unsafe practices and misleading advertisements. Right now the dietary supplements industry (48 recalls since 2014) is one of most poorly regulated industries in the United States, largely due to legal restrictions on the FDA’s ability to do what it does best—regulate. A stronger FDA won’t necessarily stop bugs (or listeria) from creeping into your ice cream. But, especially in the midst of an outbreak that has already claimed at least three lives, more food safety regulation certainly seems like a good idea.

Outreach to businesses helps Smart & Final results

Apr 28, 2015Elliot Zwiebach

Smart & Final Stores said initiatives focused on getting business customers to buy more per visit have helped boost sales at stores where the programs are in place.

Speaking with analysts Tuesday, Dave Hirz, president and CEO of the Los Angeles-based non-membership warehouse chain, said the company has doubled its advertising budget at Smart & Final Extra stores opened in the last few months “to help build traction with local small businesses.”

The result, he said, is that sales to business customers at four new stores opened so far this year were 25% higher in the first five weeks after opening than they were during the first five weeks at 13 new stores opened last year.

Business customers account for 45% of the company’s sales, Hirz noted.

The company has also boosted sales by moving produce and meat to the front of its stores, he said. “We’ve seen a 9% to 10% increase in produce sales at the first seven stores with perishables up front, and we will add 10 more stores this year to see if we can continue that kind of increase,” he said.

He also said employing perishable specialists at some stores to help business customers has had positive results, with plans to boost the specialists from 26 stores last year to 30 more this year.

Smart & Final is also expanding its “Buy More/Save More” program to incentivize more case volume sales to businesses by expanding its offering by 20% to 1,200 items, Hirz said.

Hirz made his comments during a conference call to discuss financial results for the 12-week first quarter ended March 22, which saw net income climb 95% to $4.9 million. As previously announced, sales rose 11.9% to $822.2 million, with comparable store sales up 6.1%.

He said comp sales decelerated as the quarter progressed due to declining inflation in proteins, noting that the level of inflation for proteins was 4% last year but is likely to fall into the 1% to 2% range this year.

During the call Hirz said home delivery sales from a pilot test with Google are running at $140,000 per week.

The company is also conducting its own home delivery pilot at 10 stores, with deliveries up 45% during the first quarter, Hirz said, though he did not give a dollar amount. He said sales are profitable, “but we are not yet ready to expand the program.”

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Learnings from a crash course in omnichannel shopping options

April 27, 2015; 00:16 am by Steve Bishop

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How fast can shopping get a lot more "omnichannel"?

The answer is very fast. My wife broke her leg pretty badly in a ski accident last winter – and BOOM! Suddenly our shopping habits changed – a lot.

For retailers who are wrestling with the transition to omnichannel, here’s a shopper’s-eye-view of what that transition looks like and a checklist of what mattered most to us about the omnichannel experience.

1. Bring it to me.

My wife couldn’t walk or drive for about a month, and I couldn’t stop working to take care of her and the house. We needed delivery service in the worst way, so we leaned heavily on Instacart. It covers a lot of the stores we shop, like Jewel and Costco, and we used them for occasions at both ends of the spectrum: immediate need and stock-up. Since Instacart is really a middle-man, we couldn’t access our store reward programs or get the Costco rebate. The website was easy to use though; we could update online orders up to the last minute, and the shopper would call before they left the store to see if we needed anything else.

For us, the biggest downside was not being able to access the full store inventory easily. You can type in specific items that aren’t on Instacart’s list (or even submit a picture), but we noticed that the shoppers often had trouble finding these items.

2. Cook for me!

We also needed meal help. Sorry, I am not a cook, and even though my wife was at home, she wasn’t allowed to stand up except briefly – so MyFitFoods went from a once-in-a-while option at our house to our regular meal source. They cater to people like us who can’t or don’t want to cook, but who want to eat fresh, healthy prepared meals. You order online and pick the meals up at the stand-alone store. The 3-day lead time wasn’t great, a loyalty program would have been nice, and I wished they would change up the menu more often, but it was a lot of what we were looking for – a way to eat healthy while getting through this. (I’d have signed up for delivery if they’d offered it.)

3. Get personal.

Here’s where Walgreen’s shined. My wife could order the exact personal care products she wanted online (me and 400 varieties of shampoo, not good odds). We could also collect prescriptions and minor groceries/household goods at the same time. They made it easy to use the rewards program online, and I could pick up the order or have it delivered. That was great flexibility and convenience.

You may have noticed all three of the above are digital/physical hybrids, but we did our share of online-only shopping also.

When timing wasn’t an issue, we shopped frequently at Amazon.com. We tried to shop Ulta for health and beauty care products, but when their online store didn’t offer the same products as the brick and mortar, we went to drugstore.com – a new service for us, and one we’ll keep using. When we needed to buy a specialty supplement from Whole Foods that wasn’t listed on Instacart, we opted for Amazon rather than take a chance on them not getting it right.

The result: An omnichannel checklist

Retailers have a lot to think about when they’re transitioning to omnichannel, and the details can be so overwhelming that it’s hard to keep the goal in focus sometimes – that is, the goal of serving shoppers’ needs better.

In that spirit, here’s a checklist of what mattered most to us about our deep dive/plunge into the omnichannel experience.

Could we order full in-store inventory online? Could we make that order from a mobile device easily?
Was the previous order saved for future shopping lists?
Did we have the option of delivery if wanted/needed ?
Could we get access to good-for-you prepared meals, not just ingredients?
Did our loyalty programs follow us in these new areas?
Could we get in and out of the store fast if we were picking up an online order?

We probably won’t keep up this level of omnichannel activity in the future, but I also know we won’t go all the way back to where we were before either. And the checklist? It’s become a pretty good report card for how we evaluate retailers’ omnichannel offerings and their ability to fit into our live

Uber is bringing its food delivery service to New York City and Chicago

Finally, an app that delivers food!

By Nitasha Tiku
on April 28, 2015 06:00 am
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This week Uber is launching its food delivery service, UberEats, in New York City and Chicago. The company has already piloted the program in Los Angeles and Barcelona. UberEats will be accessible from within Uber's existing app, although the food option only shows up when consumers are in the coverage area. The service promises dishes from "popular, iconic restaurants" delivered curbside — not to your door — "faster than it takes to boil water."

An Uber representative told The Verge that UberEats has its own dedicated drivers. Lunch options will range from $9 to $12, while dinner options will range from $10 to $15. The Uber rep said meals come with a $3 delivery fee ($4 in New York City), regardless of the number of meals you order.

"FASTER THAN IT TAKES TO BOIL WATER."

In a blog post about the expansion, Uber says it plans to "curate" menus, which will change daily, just like any other artisanal app experience. For its inaugural run in New York City, UberEats will kick off with "an exclusive sandwich" from American Cut, Kale Caesar salad from Sweetgreen, the steak sandwich from Num Pang, and more. Chicago consumers can order the Pepito Torta from XOCO and Carne Asada Cemita from Cemitas, among other offerings.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been telegraphing his attempt at delivery domination since 2013, when he told Bloomberg: "Once you're delivering cars in five minutes, there's a lot of things you can deliver in 5 minutes." Uber's first foray into "things" began with courier service called UberRush tested in Manhattan. Next up was Cornerstore, a delivery service for household items beta-tested in Washington, D.C. that was renamed UberEssentials.

It's only natural that the company, which raised $5.9 billion in funding, doubles down on UberEats while venture capitalists are salivating hundreds of millions over food delivery.

Uber claims that the response to UberEats has been "amazingly positive." In Los Angeles, Uber now offers brunch on the weekends and claims delivery time is down to 10 minutes or less. According to Uber, its drivers "tell us they love having another way to earn more through the Uber platform," although the $40 billion company and its contract workersdon't always see eye to eye. To promote its carpool offering, Uber is charging San Francisco customers only $7 to get anywhere in the city using UberPool, while drivers are compensated regularly. It's unclear what kind of incentives Uber is offering drivers for UberEats.

UBER SAYS THE FEEDBACK FROM UBEREATS HAS BEEN 'AMAZINGLY POSITIVE'

In response to questions from The Verge about the status of of UberRush and UberEssentials, the company said that UberRush was still running out of New York City, adding:

We're always experimenting and finding new, creative ways to leverage the Uber app and provide even greater value to our riders and driver partners. UberEssentials was one of those experiments and we’re already taking our learnings and using them to determine what’s next. What we found with UberEssentials is people loved the convenience of using the Uber platform to get their everyday household products on-demand. The experiment allowed us to identify what our users valued about the service, as well as areas where we can make the experience even better. We look forward to continuing to innovate and providing users with new and valuable ways to leverage the Uber app.

To place an UberEats order, users just slide to appropriate tab and hit "view menu." The idea is to make food delivery as gratuitously mindless as ordering a private driver. But before Sprig, DoorDash, SpoonRocket, or any of the other heavily-funded food apps start sweating, they can take comfort in the fact that when Cornerstore (sorry UberEssentials) first launched, it was supposed to keep Amazon's Jeff Bezos up at night.

Food for thought, or the thoughtless

Updated April 24, 2015 9:52 PM
By MICHAEL DOBIE michael.dobie@newsday.com

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A worker unloads grocery goods in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 6, 2014. The Labor Department also said 31,000 more jobs were added in August and September than it had previously estimated. Photo Credit: AFP / Getty Images / Jim Watson

Can we talk about food?

Yeah, I know we all love to talk about what we eat, but I want to discuss what we waste.

Huge refrigerators encourage us to buy too much, and it spoils out of sight on the back of the shelf. Restaurants give portions too large for human consumption, and many of us send half of it to the trash. Grocery stores display only shiny, cosmetically perfect produce and throw out the rest. Farms toss "flawed" fruits and vegetables before they're sent to stores and restaurants in the first place.At a time when 1 in 6 of us struggles with hunger. How did we get to this point?

It's largely about the value we assign to things, and we don't assign value to food. It's pretty plentiful, relatively cheap, and most of us are disconnected from its production.

Once, we were in intimate contact with the food chain. We hunted and gathered, little went to waste. The same was true on the small farms that dotted our country. During the Great Depression, families rarely threw anything out, and the children of that era carried that mentality forward as parents. As kids in the 1960s and '70s, my siblings and I knew the leftover protein from dinner would be tomorrow's lunch -- sandwiches of meat loaf, meatballs, whatever. The bones from the chicken made soup.

Along the way, we lost that. We started prizing quickness, convenience, disposability and bigness in everything. Food was no exception. Freshness became a fetish. And now we get waste at every step.

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The consequences are serious, beyond the financial losses.

Most uneaten food ends up in landfills and decomposes into methane, a nasty greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. And consider the wasted resources: Getting food to our tables eats up 80 percent of the water consumed in the United States, 50 percent of the land, and 10 percent of our energy, according to the National Resources Defense Council.

My wife and I grow fruits and vegetables. That's why this drives me -- and, I suspect, other home gardeners -- batty. We care for our plants from seed to blossom. We know what went into the cultivation. We get frustrated when something spoils before we pick it. We don't toss a bruised or spotted tomato; we slice off the blemish and devour the heavenly goodness. A misshapen eggplant tastes great off the grill.

Societally, changing what we're doing is an economic imperative. It's a moral imperative. It's an environmental imperative. It's a social justice imperative. If we could cut food waste by even 15 percent, that would be enough to feed more than 25 million Americans.

There are things happening. Some food banks and other groups are rescuing imperfect produce from farms and food with expiration dates that otherwise would be thrown out. In Europe and Canada -- globally, about one-third of food is wasted -- supermarkets are selling at discount prices misshapen food with creative terms like "naturally imperfect."

But we consumers must play a part, too. Shop more frequently to help buy only what you need. Repurpose leftovers. Realize food sell-by dates are largely about optimal freshness, not safety, and don't be so quick to toss. Donate extra food. Start a compost pile. Do something.

We all love food. But it's a terrible thing to waste.

The next food fraud? Worse than the ”Horsegate”

Apr 28, 2015

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If the explosion of the infamous “Horsemeat Scandal” was greeted at first with disbelief and barely concealed laughter from the public and media, the following concern for a public health risk revealed itself in a short time as completely not founded. None of these two reactions seem to be triggered by what could be the next food fraud scandal on a global scale.

The affected product, in this case, are spices (especially cumin, paprika and various mix) which, at a level not yet identified of the supply chain, have been adulterated with crushed almond shells, with the clear aim of financial gain. The real risk – and what distinguishes this case from ” Horsegate “- is that such conduct poses a serious risk to the health of allergic consumers.

The tree nuts category, indeed, is one of the allergens that more easily could cause violent anaphylactic shock; the risk is more than real, since the analytical detection of almond’s traces (probably remained caked on the shells) was the cause of dozens of recalls and withdrawals from the market started in Britain, US, Canada and several other European countries.

Although the intent of the contamination has not yet been demonstrated, it is clear that such a wide spread of withdrawals and recalls worldwide, as well as the involvement in the issue of many different brands on the market (even global retailers such as Morrisons and Sainsbury’s) and the different types product, clearly suggest a deliberate fraud.

Spices have quite high prices, which allow good profit margins through this kind of adulteration: in addition, not always the systems of internal traceability of the small and medium-size companies are adequate to the high complexity required by management of these raw materials and their mix. Finally, as highlighted by Prof. Chris Elliot in some recent interviews, the last season saw in Gujarat (India) a cumin harvest absolutely disastrous because of the weather, and this caused a spike in prices.

Although a British company, Bart Ingredients, has challenged the analytical methods used by the British “Food Standards Agency” (FSA), advancing the hypothesis of “false positives” attributed to another ingredient (the “Mahaleb”, extracted from a variety of cherry tree), the chances that this is proved true for all cases found seems utterly unrealistic.

Britain, was the European country most affected by the phenomenon. Here the cumin’s consumption as a flavor enhancer in soups and processed products, and also in combination with other spices such as paprika, chili and curry, is very high. The extent of the contamination, however, is not yet fully established. At the moment there have been no reports of deaths or hospitalizations due to the issue, but unfortunately could only be a matter of time. The spices are used in many processed and prepacked foods and it will be very difficult to detect all the products contaminated and to remove them all from the shelves (e.g. the first recalls involved kit for fajitas in British supermarket).

This will be the first “stress test” for the newborn FSA “Food Crime United” and the UK food safety system as a whole, after its reorganization following the “Elliot Review”. Important signals, however, should also be sent by the European Commission, now engaged with the revision of Reg. (EC) n. 882/2004 and with the implementation of appropriate measures to fight frauds.UK food safety system as a whole, after its reorganization following the “Elliot Review”. Important signals, however, should also be sent by the European Commission, now engaged with the revision of Reg. (EC) n. 882/2004 and with the implementation of appropriate measures to fight frauds.