If you are satisfied with your Grocers product offerings, product knowledge and customer service you fall in with the majority of the public. The rest of you are unique and special and shop likewise!  

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (February 16, 2010)—Customer satisfaction with the goods and services that Americans buy remains steady in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Supermarkets are unchanged for a third straight year with an ACSI score of 76, even though food prices dropped after two years of large increases. Publix has been in the lead since 1994 and this year is no exception: the supermarket chain improves 5 percent to 86, its highest score ever. Safeway moves in the opposite direction one year after undertaking a large-scale store makeover. Its customer satisfaction retreats 4 percent to 72.

The economic slump took a toll on food manufacturers’ new product launches in 2009, including launches of products with “all-natural” or organic claims, according to market research firm Mintel.

Mintel reported that a review of its Global New Product Database (GNPD) showed food and drink product launches last year declined by nearly 30 percent from 2008.

Most categories saw decreases due to the down economy, said Lynn Dornblaser, leading new product expert at Mintel, in a news release. “Natural and organic products, which saw large increases in 2008, took a few steps back in 2009 due to their higher price points,” she noted.

Food and drink introductions with an all-natural claim decreased to 13 percent of all launches in 2009 from 15 percent in 2008. The organic claim showed a similar decline, to 10 percent of all launches from 12 percent in 2008.

Four years ago, a paper from the Tissue Engineering journal outlined techniques that would allow large-scale meat production in a lab. Today we can view the fruits of their research, as scientists now confirm that they have managed to grow a form of meat in a laboratory for the first time.

Researchers from The Netherlands extracted myoblast cells from the muscle of a live pig; cells that in the right environment would grow into muscle in order to repair damage to tissue, and incubated them in a nutrient-based solution derived from the blood of animal foetuses. The result was what has been described as “a soggy form of pork” which, due to laboratory rules hasn’t been sampled for taste yet. Sufficient “exercising” of said product could however yield a tougher, steak-like consistency.

Professor of physiology at Eindhoven University Mark Post, lead scientist of the government-funded research, said “You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals. We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there. This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it.”

Aside from the obvious benefits of more effective global meat and dairy production, consumption of which is set to double by 2050, the moral benefits have been acknowledged by vegetarians who agree that they have no ethical objection to the procedure, though some still query its potential. A Vegetarian Society spokesperson argues “The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered. It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.”

In addition, the ability to produce meat in a laboratory would yield environmental benefits. With 18% of the world’s greenhouse gases produced by livestock, any reduction would have a significant impact on our collective carbon footprint.

The average number of different food items in a normal-sized grocery store is over 16,000. You have a fresh meat case, a fresh vegetable case and a fresh fruit section. The ingredients are just the products themselves.

Then you begin to walk down the various isles and look at the mind-boggling number of processed products. Do you think stores would have entire aisles of snack foods if they weren’t selling them? Read the ingredient lists. I read the lists of 25 products — canned foods, soda pops, fruit drinks [not fresh squeezed], ice creams, frozen dinners, frozen snacks, aisles of candies and chocolates — and they had a minimum of 30 ingredients.
                   

Based on what science, what facts, what peer review says the explosion of diabetes and heart diseases are the result of meat consumption? Do you think people who graze like vacuum cleaners in fast-food restaurants get fat from eating meat? What about the breads, the sauces, the cheeses, the excessive portions, the extra sugar in huge cups of soft drinks and the deserts? Who are you people trying to confuse?
                   

People in fast food sell products people are going to eat and eat repeatedly. Sugar, fat and portion size bring them back. In food consumption, like most things in life, the secret is balance, sometimes even moderation.
                   

What scientific experiments have been done which shows the effect of a diet that mixes meat, vegetables, fruits and some carbohydrates? Not many. Also, humans are very individualistic in their lifestyles and physical makeup. A diet for one may not work for another.
                   

We are at the mercy of a dictatorship of minority thinkers who exist to tear something down. At the same time we have to be very conscious of opposing or challenging views. Most important is to find out facts and verifiable science. The worst thing anybody can do is to just talk to or read things written by people who agree with us. If you do that you will remain biased and ignorant. It’s hard to listen to contradictory views, but you have to.
                   

With food, remember the secret to a happy, nutritious life is balance.

Hi Everybody

Please visit this site and bookmark. The most comprehensive food safety site ever created. Co-sponsored by the USDA & HHH. www. foodsafety.gov.

Bruce

Hey meat guys have to have their fix too!

Chocolate again linked to better heart health

By Stephen Daniells, 17-Aug-2009

Increased intakes of chocolate may decrease the risk of a heart attack victim from dying from heart-related problems, according to a joint US-Swedish study.

More consumers in July said they are spending less on food than a year ago than said so in June, according to a monthly survey by investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott.

The firm said 25 percent of consumers in July said they are spending less than a year ago on food, up from 15 percent in June. In a note to investors, analyst Jonathan Feeney said in addition to buying more private label, going out to eat less and using coupons, the survey showed more consumers buying food at Wal-Mart and they continue to change their diet by choosing lower-priced kinds of foods.

“An increasing number of food dollars are apparently being diverted to Wal-Mart across all geographic, income and household size segments of our survey,” the report noted. For wholesale clubs, the trend has been largely stable, with higher income groups increasing their visits and low income groups decreasing their food shopping trips to places like BJ’s, Sam’s Club and Costco. During the first quarter, low income groups were increasing their club store food purchases.

Nearly half the consumers surveyed said they are spending less on food at both restaurants and convenience stores.

Specifically, the survey showed:

• Consumers are still aggressively foregoing restaurant dining, but at a less severe rate, with 40 percent to 45 percent of consumers reportedly eating at restaurants less than a year ago, compared to 50 percent to 60 percent in the three prior months.
• While the shift to store brands continues, fewer consumers in July said they were buying store brand cereal, soup, cookies, crackers and frozen entrees than said so in June. For frozen entrees, 24 percent said they were buying store brands versus 27 percent in June.
• Consumers are increasingly responding to price reductions, promotions and coupons. In July, 96 percent of respondents said they are buying food with coupons and other promotional offers, a steady increase since April when 87 percent said they were doing so.
• Consumers continue to trade down to lower priced kinds of foods with 92 percent saying they are doing so in July, about the same as in recent previous months.

Can the importance of a balanced diet be stressed enough? According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, Britainis currently experiencing an increase in the number of cases of orthorexia nervosa, a psychological condition whereby sufferers restrict the consumption of sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods. They also cut out any foods which contain artificial additives, or have come into contact with pesticides and herbicides.

Ursula Philpot, chair of the British Dietetic Association’s mental health group, is quoted by The Guardian as stating: “Other eating disorders focus on quantity of food but orthorexics can be overweight or look normal. They are solely concerned with the quality of the food they put in their bodies, refining and restricting their diets according to their personal understanding of which foods are truly ‘pure’.This unhealthy obsessions with cutting out large numbers of foods or foods that contain certain ingredients may increase the risk of malnutrition” . 

In the first quarter of 2009, there were 14,319 business bankruptcies in the U.S. — a 64% surge from 2008, and the highest of any quarter in at least the past 15 years, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

While little data exists on bankruptcies specifically in the franchise field, the International Franchise Association (IFA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers found in a January study that the economic decline is taking its toll. They project that the number of franchise establishments in America will decline by 1.2% in 2009 — a net loss of 10,000 of the nearly 865,000 establishments that existed in 2008. Recession proof..hardly. Support local independent retailers!

Vegetarians have slightly weaker bones than meat-eaters, according to a joint Australian-Vietnamese study published in the July 2 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The research determined that vegetarians had 5 percent less dense bones than meat-eaters, while vegans — who avoid eating all animal products — had 6 percent weaker bones. Whether the lower bone density can be linked to an increased risk of fracture has yet to be discovered.

The study, conducted by researchers at Sydney’s Garvan Institute for Medical Research and the Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine in Ho Chi Minh City, investigated the connection between diet and bones of more than 2,700 people. Hey folks, throw in some protein with that Asparagus!