Pundit’s Mailbag — ‘Mandatory’
Had To Be Removed To Get
Advisory Committee Approval
Our piece, USDA Fruit And Vegetable Advisory Committee Falls Short Of Mandatory Regulation Recommendation, drew attention to a discrepancy between the message the USDA Advisory Committee was giving and what United Fresh & PMA were saying. The piece brought a number of messages including this letter from a participant: Chuck Ciruli and I are on […]
Pundit Pulse Of The Industry:
California Almond Board
With so much effort expended on California lettuce and leafy greens, an obvious question has been what can various segments of the industry do to get ahead of the game. We’ve run a project here at the Pundit to look at what different commodity groups and geographical sectors are doing to enhance food safety. The […]
Food Safety And ‘Locally Grown’
True story: A national shipper has a meeting with a major retailer. He is told to produce his third-party audit certification and provide evidence of his water testing and other food safety measures that he has previously been told he is obligated to comply with. The importance of food safety as the paramount value of […]
Kroger And Tesco Approach Store Acquisitions Differently
A&P had put up for sale all of its 66 Farmer Jack stores in Michigan. Now Kroger is buying 20 of the best locations all over southeast Michigan, including prime locations in places such as Bloomfield Township, Dearborn and Troy. A Wisconsin consultant got to the point: “I figured Kroger’s would pick all the cherries,” […]
Pundit’s Mailbag — Too Much Hype Over ‘Organic’?
We ran a piece entitled Is Organic Produce Healthier? — and it brought numerous responses including a letter from a salad dressing manufacturer who responded as aconsumer. We ran that piece under the title Pundit’s Mailbag — A Different Definition Of Organic Health. Today we run a letter that points out some realities about agriculture: […]
Pero’s Hydroponic Farm — Higher Yields In Less Space
We ran a piece entitled pesticide Spraying Gets More Attention that brought up the issue of what happens as suburbs encroach on farmland. This was followed by a piece we called Pundit’s Mailbag — Green Acres Is The Place To Be?!? — that furthered this discussion. More recently an interview with John Baillie of the […]
Tesco Launches Price War In The U.K.
Just the other day Whole Foods was opening in London and The Economist, an esteemed British publication, was covering the event by telling us about changes in consumer attitudes: People nowadays will pay a lot more for food they think is fresher and healthier. Whole Foods plays to this by spraying its great pyramids of […]
How Immigration/Globalization
Affects The Economy
We have been following the immigration debate for some time with many pieces, including: Doubtful Immigration Policy, Pundit’s Mailbag — Immigration, Straight Talk On Immigration, Immigration And The Poultry Industry, Reducing Labor With Technology, AgJobs Take 2, Pundit’s Mailbag — AgJOBS vs. Lou Dobbs, Pundit’s Mailbag — AgJOBS Bill Needs More Support, AgJOBS Gets ‘Pull’ […]
Chinese Garlic And Food Safety
Our piece, China Plays Down Food Safety Problems, didn’t mention any fresh produce imports from China, but China is a significant supplier of garlic, and the piece struck close enough to home to prompt this letter: As an industry we all have concerns about food safety and product integrity. Whether the commodity happens to be […]
China Plays Down Food Safety Problems
The China Daily is an English language newspaper that is controlled by China’s communist party. So when it runs an article entitled, Quality of China’s Farm Products Improving, it is fair to say that high authorities in China are concerned with world perception of the safety of Chinese food production: Chinese farm products are getting […]
