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GOURMET NEWS NOVEMBER 2017 www.gourmetnews.com News & Notes NEWS & NOTES 5 BRIEFS U.S. Grocers Gaining Ground With Click-and- Collect Programs Traditional chains are positioning themselves to capture a significant majority of online grocery sales over the next decade or so, said Joe McKeska, President of Elkhorn Real Estate Partners,during a panel discussion at Marquette University's annual commercial real estate conference. "The prediction is for a significant portion of grocery sales to move online—from roughly 2 percent today to upwards of 20 percent by 2025," McKeska noted during "The Last Mile and Urbanization," a panel discussion at the Milwaukee University's Real Estate Strategies Conference on September 18. "The ready assumption is that Amazon or other e-commerce players will take the lead, but this assessment may fail to weigh the significant progress U.S. chains have already made in developing their e-commerce capabilities, including bringing click-and-collect to their stores." Trader Joe's Opens Final Locations for 2017 Trader Joe's opened the last of its new locations for 2017 on October 12. Hundreds of customers were welcomed with leis, and treated to free food and beverage tastings at stores in Allston, Massachusetts; Kalamazoo, Michigan, and North Brunswick, New Jersey. Fourteen new locations opened this year, bringing the total number of Trader Joe's stores to 474. Other new locations include, San Francisco, California; West Hollywood, California; San Diego, California; Hoboken, New Jersey; Las Vegas, Nevada; Brooklyn, New York; Somerville, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Washington, D.C.; Coralville, Iowa; San Juan Capistrano, California; and Jacksonville, Florida. For the past 10 years, Trader Joe's has opened an average of 23 stores annually, bringing hundreds of jobs to communities nationwide— nearly all of them filled by neighborhood residents. Plans for 2018 locations are already underway. The openings come on the heels of a successful 50th anniversary celebration for the grocery store chain. In August, as a thank you to its customers, Trader Joe's locations across the country invited shoppers to stop by and enjoy games, giveaways, tastings and more. Total customer count over the two-day period saw an increase of nearly 10 percent compared to the same time last year. Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, and Albertsons Stores Raise Money for California Wildfire Relief The Albertsons Companies Foundation conducted an in-store fundraiser to help people and communities affected by the California wildfires. Safeway, Vons, Pavilions and Albertsons stores in California and northern Nevada raised money to help disaster relief organizations, including the Red Cross, to prepare for, respond to and help people recover from these devastating fires. The Albertsons Companies Foundation is matching customer donations up to $500,000. Along with financial assistance, Safeway's northern California division worked with the Red Cross to donate tractor trailers to bring and store food to help evacuation shelters as well as with multiple local organizations throughout Napa and Sonoma Counties to provide food and other necessities to multiple shelters. Organic Agriculture Helps Fight Climate Change BY LORRIE BAUMANN The organic farmers who are putting com- post on their fields instead of synthetic fer- tilizer are doing the climate a favor, according to a growing body of research that suggests that organic practices can help remediate major causes of climate change, according to Dr. Tracy Misiewicz, The Organic Center's Associate Director of Science Programs. Greenhouse gas emis- sions associated with growing food are a major contributor to human-caused cli- mate change, and many food producers are looking for ways that they can mitigate those impacts and minimize the risks to their supply chains while also producing more food for a global population that's ex- pected to grow to almost 10 billion people by 2050, according to the United Nations, which estimates the current global popula- tion at nearly 7.6 billion. The world's population has grown by 1 billion people just since 2005 and by 2 bil- lion people since 1993. The latest U.N. pro- jections indicate that the world will have about 8.6 billion people in 2030 and 9.8 billion in 2050, with more than half of global population growth between now and 2050 taking place in Africa. The population of Europe is expected to decline somewhat during that period. In the United States, 124 companies have committed to work on climate change with the Climate Collaborative, which is a joint project of OSC2, an industry organization based in northern California, and the Sus- tainable Food Trade Association. The Cli- mate Collaborative formed last year with the mission of leveraging the power of the natural products industry to reverse cli- mate change. The organization asks its members to commit to efforts in at least one of nine areas of concern: agriculture, energy efficiency, food wastes, forests, packaging, policy, renewable energy, short- lived climate pollutants and transportation. Some of its members have made commit- ments in all nine areas, according to Lisa Spicka, Associate Director of the Sustain- able Food Trade Association. Agriculture is a particularly important area of concern, since about 40 percent of the Earth's ice-free surface is currently being used for agriculture, according to Misiewicz. More than 900 million acres of land are currently used as farmland, ac- cording to the U.S. Department of Agricul- ture, with the vast majority of that about evenly divided between permanent pasture and croplands. Agriculture is a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions that are largely responsible for human-caused climate change, Misiewicz said. Our food systems are responsible for about 19 to 29 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emis- sions, with agriculture responsible for about 80 to 86 percent of that, she said. That gives agriculture two important ways to be part of the solution to climate change: by decreasing emissions of greenhouse gases and by sequestering carbon in the soil, she added. Agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases happen directly through fossil fuel combustion on farms to run the machinery that cultivates the soil and harvests the crops, methane releases by livestock and nitrous oxide releases resulting from the breakdown of animal wastes and excessive fertilizer use. Indirect sources of green- house gas emissions include carbon release from land conversion, such as when rain forests are cleared to make way for agricul- ture and fossil fuel use to manufacture and transport materials used for agriculture, particularly synthetic fertilizers, which are manufactured by a process that necessitates fossil fuels, Misiewicz said. Synthetic fertilizers are manufactured with the Haber Process, in which nitrogen from the air and hydrogen obtained from natural gas are combined to make ammo- nia. The ammonia, in turn, is used to make ammonium nitrate, which is fertilizer. Ammonium nitrate fertilizer is responsi- ble for an estimated 43 percent of the total environmental impact of a loaf of bread, Misiewicz said. The global warming poten- tial of a loaf of bread is heavily dominated by the carbon dioxide emissions involved in its manufacture as well as the nitrate emissions resulting from the breakdown of excess synthetic fertilizer, she added. Since organic agriculture relies on put- ting organic material (that contains car- bon) back into the soil rather than using synthetic fertilizers, organic crop produc- tion can generate, on average, 25 percent fewer global warming emissions and 80 percent fewer ozone depleting emissions, according to a Canadian study of canola, corn and soy production, Misiewicz said. "On average, organic agriculture is more energy efficient than conventional agricul- ture, largely through omission of fossil fuel-based fertilizers, and organic agricul- ture as a whole can positively impact cli- mate change mitigation through carbon sequestration." GN Today's Convenience Store: More Than Just a Gas Station Convenience stores sell 80 percent of the gas purchased in the country. And yes, they sell more than 40 percent of all packaged drinks in the country, especially bottled water and sports drinks. But today's convenience store offers so much more than just gas and bev- erages. American convenience stores are currently conducting 160 million transac- tions a day, offering fresh meals, healthy op- tions and cool new products to consumers who are increasingly channel blind. The National Association of Convenience Stores' (NACS) Show, held October 17 to 20 in Chicago put a spotlight on how conven- ience stores are evolving to attract customers who are time-stressed, health-conscious, ad- venturous and not necessarily loyal to the brands that supplied their parents' grocery needs. The show hosted more than 22,000 attendees from 50-plus countries as they at- tended four days of general sessions, 50-plus education sessions and an expo featuring more than 1,200 exhibiting companies. "Above all, convenience stores sell time. The stores are where you are, open when you need them, and you can get in and out in a matter of minutes. And these neighbor- hood stores have everything busy con- sumers need, from soup to nuts—literally," says Jeff Lenard, Vice President of Strategic Industry Initiatives for NACS. In particular, more convenience stores are offering freshly prepared food to their cus- tomers. Overall, foodservice sales in U.S. convenience stores (which includes both prepared food and beverages) are $52 bil- lion, or 22 percent of all in-store sales. Freshly prepared food and packaged sand- wiches are $35 billion of that total, accord- ing to NACS. Many stores offer hot meals prepared to order—such as sandwiches, wraps, pizza and even gourmet fare. And, of course, they offer grab-and-go snacks and meals in a cup, whether yogurt, fruit or veg- gie cups or other portable snacks. "On-the- go consumers are turning the car cup holder into a dinner plate by filling it with food packaged to fit into this space," says Lenard. Today's convenience stores are also likely to offer their customers fresh options that used to be the province of conventional gro- cers. In May, NACS became the first retail trade association to join the Partnership for a Healthier America. Consumers have noticed. Today, one in five consumers say they've no- ticed that convenience stores are offering more healthy options like salads and fruits. And, more is coming. NACS and PHA have jointly launched a new web-based nutrition calculator to help members develop better- for-you store sets. And, recognizing that con- venience stores already sell approximately 50 percent of the country's single-serve bottled water, NACS also created marketing materials featuring PHA's Drink Up initiative to encour- age customers to consume more water. GN

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