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Flipple Inventor Enters Walmart Competition

Crossborders — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:00:54 +0000

Linda Lewis, the Galesburg entrepreneur behind the Flipple line of baby products, will be competing in the Get on the Shelf contest recently announced by Walmart.

The online competition, set up similar to the popular American Idol television show, will accept video entries of entrepreneurs pitching their products until Wednesday. Online voting will then take place March 7 through April 4, at which point Walmart will name 10 finalists. Three finalists will then be announced at the end of April. All voting will occur at http://getontheshelf.com.

NAFE Names Its ‘Top 50 Companies For Executive Women’

Crossborders — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:07:52 +0000

 The National Association for Female Executives on Wednesday released its list of the “Top 50 Companies for Executive Women.” General Mills, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble were all listed in the top 10 on that list. Other notable supplier and retail companies included Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cardinal Health, Colgate-Palmolive, Eli Lilly, Kraft Foods, Merck and Walmart. “The NAFE Top 50 Companies are major employers that are committed to hiring, retaining and promoting executive women,” stated Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media and CEO of NAFE. “They represent a cross-section of companies that go way beyond lip service in helping succeed. Almost 7-out-of-10 companies require their managers to receive training on how to hire, advance or manage women. Manager accountability is the main ingredient for success.”

A Diet Pyramid for African Americans Created by Boston Nutrition Group

Crossborders — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:37:27 +0000

It may be controversial to suggest that African Americans need a food pyramid tailor-made for them, but then again, this group has experienced the greatest surge in obesity and related illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. Getting back to home-cooked basic dishes — based on staples from the American South, Caribbean, South America, and, yes, Africa — was the thought behind the new African heritage diet pyramid created by Oldways, a nonprofit nutrition education organization based in Boston. Just like Oldways’ Mediterranean diet pyramid and the federal government’s My Plate, the African diet pyramid focuses on fruits and vegetables — with greens including collard, mustard, and kale taking the most prominent spot at the base of the pyramid, which means they should be eaten at every meal. Fruits such as papayas, bananas, and watermelon, and root vegetables such as sweet potatoes and carrots are directly above and should also be eaten in plentiful amounts. Yesterday, Oldways announced that it received a $100,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to get the word out about the new pyramid via supermarket tours, cooking classes, and nutrition lectures to be held in Boston and elsewhere.

Read more at Boston.com

The Wal-Mart Foundation Donates $9.5 Million to Promote Minority Healthy Eating

Crossborders — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:22:43 +0000

On Monday, the Wal-Mart Foundation donated $9.5 million in grants to organizations with a shared mission of promoting healthy eating habits. The funding will go toward nutrition education programs and will provide classes focused on cooking and shopping for healthier foods on a budget. A little over a year ago, the company, in conjunction with First Lady Michelle Obama, announced an initiative to provide customers with healthier and more affordable food choices.

To Promote Healthier Food Choices, Walmart Adds Labels

Crossborders — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:11:12 +0000

As part of its promise last year to improve the nutritional quality of the food it sells, Walmart said on Tuesday that it had devised standards to determine what is healthy and would label the foods that meet those standards. The new label, bright green with the words Great for You, will first appear on the retailer’s own Great Value and Marketside food items this spring, as well as on signs around fresh fruits and vegetable displays. But Walmart executives said the company planned to allow other brands to use the label without paying any licensing fee on products that meet the criteria. ”This is not meant to lecture our customers,” Leslie A. Dach, Walmart’s executive vice president for corporate affairs, said in a telephone interview. ”They can buy a dessert when they want to. But when they want to buy a cracker, we can help them steer them to a healthier cracker if that’s what they’re looking for.”

Sam’s Club Gets Down to Heart of the Matter With Free Screenings

Crossborders — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:07:31 +0000

In honor of American Heart Month, Sam’s Club announced it will be hosting free heart health screenings on Feb. 11 at all locations with a pharmacy. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., members and guests can receive total cholesterol, HDL, glucose, body mass index and blood-pressure tests for. During the screenings, Sam’s Club pharmacies also will offer free samples of related items, the company said. Tests are limited to the first 100 participants at each club location. Cholesterol and glucose testing not available in Tennessee, Maryland and Hawaii; cholesterol testing is not available in New Jersey; and glucose testing not available in Pennsylvania.

Wal-Mart Plans Simple Label to Identify Healthier Foods

Crossborders — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:00:31 +0000

Wal-Mart is unveiling a simple icon that it says will help consumers make a snap decision about whether a food is healthy, without delving into the nitty-gritty of the nutrition label. The move by the nation’s biggest retailer to label some food products as “Great For You,” being unveiled Tuesday, could be a significant development in the fight against obesity because of the company’s enormous influence in the marketplace, over both consumers and food vendors eager to sell into the Wal-Mart supply chain. There have been fumbles in the past. In 2009, major food makers backed off a plan to label foods as “smart choices” after the Food and Drug Administration, which has been working on a standard system for such logos, noted that many competing nutrition symbols could be confusing. At the time, some food makers were criticized for trying to market items such as mayonnaise and sugary cereals as “smart choices.”

Walmart To Highlight Healthy Foods

Crossborders — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:24:44 +0000

Walmart is responding to rising demand for healthy food in the US by joining a growing list of food makers and grocers which are using specific labels to highlight products they deem to be good for consumers. The world’s biggest retailer by sales said the initiative would give mothers a simple and reliable way of identifying healthy food, but critics of similar moves by food makers and industry groups have complained that they are unscientific and confusing. The initiative was endorsed by Michelle Obama, the first lady, who is leading a US government drive to fight childhood obesity, and backed Walmart when it launched a broader healthy eating campaign last year. Walmart has turned to health initiatives to burnish its reputation and offset the effect of negative publicity about its impact on workers, suppliers, small retailers and local communities, which has created political obstacles to its expansion into US big cities.

Walmart Unveils “Great For You” Icon

Lucas — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:00:31 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

http://walmartstores.com/reporter

Icon to appear on hundreds of food items and provide simple way to make healthier food choices; Update on progress made over past year

WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 7, 2012 – A year after pledging to develop a front-of-pack label that would give its customers an easier way to identify healthier food, Walmart, the nation’s largest food retailer, unveiled the “Great For You” icon at an event today in Washington, D.C. The icon, part of the company’s healthier food initiative, is an effort to implement a transparent, summary icon for its private label brand products backed by rigorous nutrition criteria. “Great For You” will initially appear on select Walmart Great Value and Marketside items, as well as on fresh and packaged fruits and vegetables at Walmart U.S. stores nationwide this spring. By extending “Great For You” to fruits and vegetables and nutritious food options the company will make it easier for its customers to build healthier diets.

“Walmart moms are telling us they want to make healthier choices for their families, but need help deciphering all the claims and information already displayed on products,” said Andrea Thomas, senior vice president of sustainability at Walmart. “Our ‘Great For You’ icon provides customers with an easy way to quickly identify healthier food choices. As they continue to balance busy schedules and tight budgets, this simple tool encourages families to have a healthier diet.”

“Today’s announcement by Walmart is yet another step toward ensuring that our kids are given the chance to grow up healthy,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “Just over a year ago, Walmart committed to save shoppers a billion dollars in their cost of fruits and vegetables and the fact that Walmart exceeded this number is a real accomplishment and a milestone in our efforts to support families eating better. In addition, the healthy seal will be another tool for parents to identify the best products for their kids. Giving parents the information they need to make healthy choices is a key piece of solving childhood obesity.”

Items with the “Great For You” icon must meet rigorous nutrition criteria informed by the latest nutrition science and authoritative guidance from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Institute of Medicine (IOM). Developed in consultation with food and nutrition experts from the public and private sectors as well as leading health organizations, the “Great For You” nutrition criteria are available to the public on the web (www.walmartgreatforyou.com), representing a collaborative and transparent effort to develop a trusted and reliable system for consumers. The icon will also be made available to national brand products that qualify and can be complementary to other nutrition labeling systems being used by the food industry.

“Walmart’s effort to bring healthier food to kitchen tables nationwide was inspired by our customers and informed by the latest food science and policy,” said Leslie Dach, executive vice president of corporate affairs at Walmart. “Last year we stood with the First Lady and showed how Walmart, working with its suppliers, the public sector and non-governmental organizations, can truly make a difference in people’s lives.”

Dach added: “We are proud to announce that after a year of working with nutrition stakeholders, meaningful progress is being made. We have the opportunity to address an issue many feel is too complicated or too hard to tackle and to demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be.”

The icon serves as a guide to help people make incremental changes to their diet by encouraging more nutritious food choices. The science-based criteria use a two-step process: Step one focuses on encouraging people to eat more fruits, vegetables, fiber-rich whole grains, low-fat dairy, nuts and seeds and lean meats. Examples of these items include brown rice, 1 percent milk, raw almonds and 93 percent lean ground beef. Step two limits the amount of total, trans and saturated fats, sodium and added sugars that can be found in items such as sweetened oatmeal, granola bars, flavored yogurt and frozen meals.

“When it comes to food, our customers want a variety of choices, but they also want help identifying healthier options. Customers asked us to make healthier food choices easy while keeping prices low,” said Jack Sinclair, executive vice president of grocery for Walmart. “The nutritionists we engaged told us to make the criteria tough and significant. We feel confident the ‘Great For You’ icon balances those objectives, and will become an important tool Walmart shoppers can use to fill their pantries with healthier food at prices our customers can afford.”

The criteria have undergone an extensive evaluation process using thousands of grocery items to help ensure that only nutritious items in each grocery category receive the “Great For You” icon. One evaluation compared Walmart’s criteria with what people in America commonly consume using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of more than 4,000 food items.

The development of the “Great For You” icon is part of an initiative Walmart launched in 2011 to make food healthier and healthier food more affordable. The initiative includes reformulating packaged food to reduce sodium and added sugars and eliminate industrially produced fats by 2015; making healthier food more affordable by providing savings on produce and reducing the price premium on better-for-you food items; developing solutions for food deserts; and increasing charitable support for nutrition education programs.

“At a time when obesity rates are the highest ever for Americans, especially Hispanics, Walmart’s new ‘Great For You’ symbol will help make eating healthy the easier choice,” said Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. “In order to successfully help Latino children and families eat healthier, we hope other food companies will follow in Walmart’s footsteps and commit to increasing access to healthier food at a lower cost.”

Over the past year, Walmart has been working with private label brand and national brand suppliers to make progress on its goals. To date, some of the highlights include:

Reformulating thousands of everyday packaged food items by 2015
Walmart has been working to reduce sodium and added sugars in 165 food items. Some of the items reformulated in the last year include:

15 percent sodium reduction in Great Value ketchup
An average of 15 percent sodium reduction in Great Value canned vegetables, including corn, green beans and carrots
More than 70 percent sodium reduction in fresh steaks, roasts and other muscle cuts of beef

Thomas added: “These reductions are a clear sign of how we can make meaningful changes to the food we sell by making simple modifications to the products in our stores. We can significantly reduce sodium and sugar without having to sacrifice quality and taste.”

These efforts also include developing a survey of more than 20,000 food items in key categories, such as grain, dairy, soups and beverage products to establish a benchmark to track the progress being made on the reformulation of Great Value and national brand packaged food items. Progress toward the company’s goals will be reported in Walmart’s annual Global Responsibility Report.

Making healthier food choices more affordable
The company surpassed one of its key goals, helping customers save $1.1 billion by offering low prices on fruits and vegetables. In addition, the company has been working to make healthier food choices more affordable by reducing or eliminating the price premium on more than 350 better-for-you items, such as low-sodium lunch meat, reduced-fat peanut butter and fat-free salad dressing.

Providing solutions to address food deserts by building stores
As part of its commitment to provide solutions to food deserts, Walmart announced it would provide more than 1.3 million people living in more than 700 USDA designated food deserts with access to fresh and healthy food. The company said it will open between 275 and 300 stores in areas serving food deserts by 2016. Since its commitment in July 2011, Walmart has opened 23 stores in areas serving food deserts and anticipates opening between 50 to 60 Walmart stores or Neighborhood Market locations in those areas in 2012.

Increasing support for nutrition education programs
Over the past year, Walmart and its Foundation have provided more than $13 million in grants to nutrition education programs. This figure includes yesterday’s announcement of $9.5 million in grants to organizations, such as Share Our Strength, the National 4-H Council and Action for Healthy Kids, to name a few. The recently announced grants will promote healthy eating habits that will impact nearly 300,000 individuals this year.

For more information on “Great For You” and nutrition criteria, visit: www.walmartgreatforyou.com.

About Walmart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) serves customers and members more than 200 million times per week at more than 10,000 retail units under 69 different banners in 27 countries. With fiscal year 2011 sales of $419 billion, Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity. Additional information about Walmart can be found by visiting http://walmartstores.com and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/walmart. Online merchandise sales are available at http://www.walmart.com and http://www.samsclub.com.

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Intel Corp is America’s Biggest Green Power Consumer, But Walmart is Coming Up Fast

Crossborders — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:10:50 +0000

The Environmental Protection Agency has released the latest updates on America’s biggest consumers of green power, and computer chip producer Intel Corp comes in at Number 1. A full 88% of the electricity consumed by Intel is green, purchased from wind and solar farms. All told, they ate up more than 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of both over last year. Kohl’s, Walmart, Whole Foods Markets and Johnson & Johnson round out the top 5, with Walmart moving from 15th to 3rd place on the strength of their green power purchases in California and Texas alone (and pushing Whole Foods down to fourth place).