Did you hear? Walmart’s planning to revamp its line of Great Value food products, pulling unnecessary fat, sugar and salt from the recipes. AND, it’s going to push its vendors to do the same. AND, there’s more: The company says it’ll lower prices on fruit, veggies and whole grain products.
This may not seem like a big deal at first blush, but when you consider the reality that Walmart is now America’s favorite grocery store … well, all that calorie-cutting could make a big difference for your bottom line (pun intended) and a huge difference in how the food industry processes food.
Here’s more from The New York Times:
In interviews previewing the announcement, Wal-Mart and White House officials said the company was also pledging to press its major food suppliers, like Kraft, to follow its example. Wal-Mart does not disclose how much of its sales come from its house brand. But Kraft says about 16 percent of its global sales are through Wal-Mart.In addition, Wal-Mart will work to eliminate any extra cost to customers for healthy foods made with whole grains, said Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for corporate affairs. By lowering prices on fresh fruits and vegetables, Wal-Mart says it will cut into its own profits but hopes to make up for it in sales volume. “This is not about asking the farmers to accept less for their crops,” he said.
The changes will be introduced slowly, over a period of five years, to give the company time to overcome technical hurdles and to give consumers time to adjust to foods’ new taste, Mr. Dach said. “It doesn’t do you any good to have healthy food if people don’t eat it.”
Read the entire article, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, here.
In other news, Charlotte’s own Brooklyn Decker talks to Self magazine about how she’s “wrecked” her body to stay thin. That interview will be in the magazine’s February issue.
Rhiannon “Rhi” Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing’s CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
This article appears in Jan 18-24, 2011.
This is nothing more than a propagandist campaign in order to raise prices.
They had to leave Germany. They had to leave South Korea. They have had six straight quarters of declining same store sales in America. They sold Adsa. They close the office in Russia.
It’s all about growth…no growth adds up to smaller margins and less profits.
“It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption.” – Jean Baptiste Say
If Retail makes NOTHING….and Government makes only MORE DEBT….the only thing that can have a positive affect on communities is Small Business and companies that make stuff.
The picture of George Washington can float around a town six to eight times before leaving the community but if that dollar is spent inside of a big box store it will leave the same day that it entered.
Big Box stores like Wal*Mart can take in 200,000 George Washington’s a day and that be a lot of “Liberty” “Pride” “Freedom” leaving town each day.
And when one figures into the equation America has a six to one trade deficit with China which means five out of every six George Washington’s that go there will never come back unless the US Government sells bonds(debt) this is what those on Jenkins Hill and Wall Street don’t understand when it comes to local banks not having any George Washington’s to loan out in their communities.
Why is it that people ain’t writing articles about those fifteen cargo ships that pollute as much as 760 million automobiles, T Boone Pickens owning a Texas Water District, Nestle draining the Great Lakes, the disconnect between Coca-Cola and the people of India, Wal*Mart putting less than 5% foreign in their stores in China and Warren Buffett buying a Choo Choo train a few years after Wal*Mart makes a deal on a port in Mexico.
In 1960 U.S. goods manufacturing produced a $5 billion trade surplus – – 2006 merchandise trade had a $836 billion deficit. Today, for some reason, the world thinks the American consumer needs to support what they make….well, it doesn’t work like that even a fifth grader can figure that out.
So-call cheaper items only breed cheaper wages and this will go on until the rich of the world carry out the manufacturing of ignorance through out the 182 or so counties that will have a chance to make something.
I’m just an O’fart with very little book learning but from what I’ve seen over the past sixty five years in this great union of fifty states has shown me that common sense left in the year 63′ and “my sh!! don’t stink” sense as been here every since.
Sad, those few fat farmers with penmanship of poets holding feather quill pens and writing the American dream has today become nothing more than a page within a history book that a bunch of asinine dipsticks are to lazy and ignorant to teach.
Over the past 100 years the Federal Debt has gone from $2.6 billion in 1910 to over $14 trillion today….In that time there has only been one 10 year period that the debt has gone down 1920-1930.
All done by a bunch of elephants and jack@sses acting like turnips. People today still think Clinton balance the budget but anyone knows if they think with an open mind that if the budgets of the Clinton years had been balance the debt would had not gone up.
America is over $57 trillion in debt and it didn’t get there by people using common sense. If the American people don’t wake-up to that fact within another twenty years they will witness Lady Liberty kneeling to her knees in the Hudson and someone in Tiananmen Square holding that tablet from under her left arm celebrating what is written upon it.
This will not last. Making crappy food will not bring in bustomers, especially to new products. I used to love Chunky soup and then all of a sudden they started removing the salt and putting green healthy labels on the cans. I didn’t think much of it till I bought the soup I had been buying off and on for years. The new and improved soup was incredibly bland. I bought two cans and the second still sits in my kitchen a year later. This health nut crap for people with no self control will fail. Why punish everyone for the sins of the few.
Buy a salt shaker, Frank.
Oh, poor wittle Fwankie don’t have his favowite wittle Chunky Soup no more. Poor Poor Fwankie! No more dewicious Chunky soup for Fwankie Wankie!
Here’s an idea Fwankie: make your own fucking soup. Just like every other adult with half a brain. Just stick your head in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes and call it Fwankie Soup. Mmmm…mmmm……….good!