Oser Communications Group

GOURMET NEWS OCTOBER 2017 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 8 Food Waste Continued from PAGE 1 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the dollar value of food now wasted in the U.S. is $218 billion, which is equal to 1.3 percent of the country's gross domestic product, and equivalent to 1,250 calories per person per day, about half the recom- mended daily intake for adults. That wasted food also accounts for 2.6 percent of all U.S. annual greenhouse gas emissions and about one fifth of all the agricultural water usage in the U.S., more than the agri- cultural water usage of Texas, California and Ohio combined. If there is a villain here, supermarkets aren't it — consumer households are re- sponsible for more than three times the food waste that's produced by grocery re- tailers and distributors, according to ReFED, a nonprofit organization of busi- ness, nonprofit and government leaders dedicated to reducing food waste through data-driven solutions. Grocers are challenged in their efforts to reduce food waste by consumer demand for a consistently wide variety of food inven- tory that can strain inventory management and food purchasing. "When you're dealing with an issue like wasted food, it's impor- tant to talk about culture and what you stand for. Any strategies are going to run right up against culture. You've got to get in front of this by stepping back and think- ing about culture," Rauch said. "Culture starts with leadership. People are going to look to you." If you're known for offering the economy sizes that reduce packaging waste, you'll have a harder time avoiding the suspicion that you're encouraging consumers to buy more food than they can use. And of course, consumer demand for freshness and sensitivity to aesthetic values can lead you to discard produce as soon as it's past its peak out of concern for your shoppers' experience. Reducing food waste offers you the op- portunity to boost revenues by marketing discounted imperfect produce. "Imperfect produce is a great opportunity for retailers. As soon as you call something 'heirloom,' people will pay more for it even if it looks weird," Rauch said. "We can't let perfect be the enemy of the good. We've got to find ways to take this food that's cosmetically blemished but healthy and figure out how to feed the one in seven who are food inse- cure or how to use it to give our customers a better value." You can give customers a bargain and eliminate some of their need to dispose of aging product by expanding programs to discount items nearing the end of their shelf life and by allowing prepared foods to run out close to closing. Use signs to ex- plain to customers that allowing items to run out helps curtail food waste. In the pro- duce department and in seafood and meat cases, platforms and other props can help make displays appear fuller without utiliz- ing as much product. Improved inventory management sys- tems can also help. Mining your data can help analyze item performance to help identify opportunities to eliminate items as well as improve forecasting. On a macro scale, you can place greater reliance on products packaged to prevent spoilage, and you can collaborate with manufacturers to improve date labeling on products and to educate consumers about the meaning of the dates they see on package labels. Many grocers are already leading the way by finding ways to encourage con- sumers to buy cosmetically imperfect fruit and vegetables. The Natural Resources De- fense Council, in its 2012 update to its 2012 report that started the national dis- cussion, "Wasted: How America is Losing up to 40 Percent of its food from Farm to Fork to Landfill," points to French retailer Intermarche's periodic promotion called "Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables" in which it offers prepared foods such as soups and yogurts made from lower-grade produce and sells fresh misshapen fruit and vegetables for a 30 percent discount. The initial rollout in 2014 saw sales of 1.2 tons per store and a 24 percent increase in overall store traffic in the first two days, according to the retailer. "Wasted" reports that Hy-Vee, Hannaford, Giant Eagle, Whole Foods and Walmart are among those rolling out full or pilot programs in the U.S. Other efforts to reduce food waste are being greeted enthusiastically by consumers, as evidenced by the 83,000 followers for a Twitter site called @uglyfruitandveg, which posts pictures of oddly shaped produce and United Kingdom startup Oddbox, which de- livers boxes of misshapen produce to Lon- don customers. In the U.S., Imperfect Produce sells boxes of misshapen produce directly to consumers, attracting more than 7,000 customers in its first year after launch- ing in July 2015, according to the company's CEO. Hungry Harvest has a similar business model for "rescued produce" in Washing- ton, D.C. Jody Levy and Harlan Berger are among those who've found a profit in rescuing produce that would otherwise be dis- carded in the field. They're the co- founders of WTRMLN WTR, which produces cold-pressed watermelon juice and markets it as an outstanding hydra- tion product that also reduces food waste. At the time they founded the com- pany in 2013, Berger and Levy sourced only rescued fruit to make Original WTRMLN WTR. With the growth the company has seen, the company now sources other fruit from its nationwide network of growers, but, still, 60 percent of the fruit that's used to make a line that now includes four other varieties would be otherwise discarded. "We take many melons from growers around the country. There are times when farmers don't get the rains they're expecting, and so they have tons of watermelons they can't sell because they're sunburned. These are perfectly good watermelons, and we take them and cold-press them to obtain the water in four facilities around the coun- try," Levy said. "We use everything but the skin." Levy herself is an example of the kind of consumers who seek her products and who connect with businesses who lead the way on the issues they care about. "I personally believe that every business is like an organ- ism and every person connected to and in- vests in that business is part of the whole. That applies to the consumers as well," she said. "Consumers support our brand be- cause they love our product, and they trust our product. They know we care, and they trust us because it aligns with what's impor- tant to them." GN eMeals Introduces Choose-Your-Food-Style Meal Kit Mobile meal planning service eMeals has introduced the first choose-your-food- style meal kit solution as well as the first that works with local grocery pickup and delivery partners, providing variety, flex- ibility and affordability not available from other meal kit services. Subscribers can select from 15 different eating styles ranging from Quick & Healthy to Paleo, Clean Eating, Low Calorie, Classic Meals and even Diabetic, Gluten Free and Veg- etarian, and can personalize each week's menus by selecting meals from any of the food styles or substituting favorites from previous weeks. Curbside pickup at Wal- mart and Kroger or delivery by Instacart is available with a tap, with other stores and delivery services to be added. Unlike one-size-fits-all offerings, eMeals accommodates different dietary needs and preferences. Subscribers can select from 15 meal styles – each offering seven entrée-and-side-dish menus a week – and switch to different plans at any time. In addition, instead of choos- ing from a handful of recipes, sub- scribers can choose any of the 100 new weekly recipes from the 15 meal styles or use favorites from their eMeals Recipe Box. The company boasts that, by partner- ing with local grocery providers and eliminating the expense of measuring and packaging ingredients for each recipe, its offering is available to con- sumers at less cost than they'd pay for other meal kits. At an average per-serv- ing food cost of $5 for families and $7 for couples, dinners through eMeals cost up to 50 percent less than other meal kit services. Consumers buy only the gro- ceries they need along with the eMeals subscription, which costs just $5/month for seven curated dinner menus every week. Once a week's meals are chosen, eMeals automatically populates the weekly shopping list with the necessary ingredients. Subscribers can also delete unneeded ingredients or add items such as cereal and toilet paper to the grocery list, a feature that eliminates extra shop- ping trips and is unavailable with tradi- tional meal kits. Ingredients come in standard packag- ing rather than recipe portions. Eliminat- ing pre-portioned ingredients as well as shipping containers and cooling packets reduces the packaging waste typical with other meal kits. eMeals is integrated with Walmart Grocery, Kroger ClickList and Instacart, enabling one-click grocery or- dering for curbside pickup or home de- livery at the time and date of the subscriber's choosing. Subscribers also have the option of doing the shopping themselves. All eMeals recipes are fast and easy to prepare with instructions available in the eMeals app or on the website, avoiding the cooking time and complexity of some other meal kits. The Quick & Healthy meal plan, for example, offers dinner entrees with no more than eight ingredients plus side dishes that go from stove to table in 30 minutes or less. A survey of early eMeals meal kit cus- tomers using Walmart Grocery indicates that over 90 percent plan to continue the service with more than half stating that they "can't imagine life without it." The service is also driving online grocery adoption, with 55 percent of those sur- veyed saying they used Walmart Grocery for the first time by sending their shop- ping list from eMeals with a click and then driving up to a special kiosk at Wal- mart to have their pre-picked groceries loaded directly into their vehicles. "Over the past decade, we've provided millions of weekly meal plans to con- sumers across the country, which natu- rally led to our expansion into the meal kit space," said eMeals CEO Forrest Col- lier. "Because of our experience and our use of grocery delivery and pickup part- ners, no other meal kit provider has the same food style variety, depth of recipes and shopping affordability. We are the perfect solution for people who want the convenience of meal kits but with lower cost and more personalized choices." GN "Because of our experience and our use of grocery delivery and pickup partners, no other meal kit provider has the same food style variety, depth of recipes and shopping affordability. We are the perfect solution for people who want the convenience of meal kits but with lower cost and more personalized choices." —EMEALS CEO FORREST COLLIER

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