Organic &
Wellness News
Wellness News
The international publication for organic and sustainable trade
Organic & Wellness News
The international publication for organic and sustainable trade
Winter 2013
A group of 14 different growers and more than 4,000 families growing bananas in Honduras had its Rainforest Alliance certification removed in response to complaints over worker treatment. The country’s banana association said in December this will lead to US$21 mill
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Upmarket UK grocer Waitrose has seen its most successful Christmas on record with total branch sales (excluding fuel) for the twelve trading days ending December 31st up 6.5% on last year and 4.1% on a like for like basis. Sales on Monday 23 December were £51m &nda
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Agropalma announced January 9 the agreement for a strategic partnership in support of the British non-governmental organization Orangutan Land Trust (OLT), which works to enable sustainable solutions that ensure safe areas of forest for the continued survival of the orang
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GM-free and eco-labeled food products are surging in the US as the GM labeling debate intensifies. Although the Washington and California initiatives were defeated, consumer interest in GM-free and certified products is soaring. What does 2014 have in store for GM-free f
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Holy Crap is launching its new single serving cereal cup January 19 at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. An extension of its highly popular cereal bags, the Holy Crap single serving cereal cups are recyclable and will open new venues to introduce the product. I
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Washington, U.S. the Center for Science in the Public Interest notified Crystal Light’s manufacturer, Kraft Foods, on January 9 that it will be sued if it continues to use the word “natural” in connection with its Natural Lemonade, Natural Pink Lemonade,
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By The Environmental Group The news that General Mills is making its Cheerios breakfast cereal without genetically modified ingredients and will place this information on food labels has not come as a huge shock to Alex Formulism, of U.S. NGO the Environmental Working Gr
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While French supermarket chain Carrefour has announced its acquisition of Poland’s Rast supermarket chain, which operates 10 stores in the north eastern store of Olsztyn, for an undisclosed fee, Polish politicians have called for a boycott of UK grocery giant Tesco,
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Following two years of intensive thought, discussions, debates, and revisions, IFOAM was pleased to announce in January that the Best Practice Guideline for Agriculture and Value Chains (which can be downloaded at www.ifoam.org), has been approved by unanimous vote of the
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The fight for GM food labeling in the US will continue in 2014, anticipates Organic Monitor with eco-labels gaining more exposure after each battle at the ballot box. Sales of organic certified foods and other eco-labeled products are soaring, as better informed consumers
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While the world is worrying about how it will feed the projected global population of over 9 billion people in 2050, there is an important question to address first: how can we stop wasting the food we are already producing? Over a quarter of the world’s food goes
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The international forum and business roundtable “Biotrade, Sustainable Business Model and Social Inclusion”, celebrated at the Lima Chamber of Commerce on October 14th, generated business transactions expected to exceed US$7 million. The Forum, one of the sev
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Major chocolate trends over the last few years include the move to premium and certified organic dark chocolate, products that are single origin and have high cacao content, use of natural sweeteners such as agave, stevia, yacon or coconut sugar and increased sustainable
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UK company Nutrisure has asked the UK Food Standards Agency’s expert advisers on novel foods to consider an application and an opinion for chia seeds to be approved for use in the European Union (EU) under the simplified approval procedure. Views were sought on the
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According to Organic Monitor, ecology is the focal theme of the upcoming North American edition of the Sustainable Foods Summit to take place at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco January 22-23, 2014. For the first time, a summit will discuss ways of promoting ecology in th
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U.S. dairy products producer WhiteWave Foods Co announced in December it would buy organic food brand Earthbound Farm from investors including private equity firm Kainos Capital for about $600 million to expand its offerings of organic products. Earthbound Farm produces
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Whole Foods Market reported sales for the 12-week fourth quarter and 52-week fiscal year ended September 29, 2013 with record fourth quarter operating results. For the quarter, total sales were $3.0 billion, an increase of 2% from the 13-week period last year and an incr
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Natural and organic foods are only the sixth or seventh largest category at the largest U.S. supermarket operator Kroger, but are the fastest growing category on a percentage basis, and sometimes dollar basis, said Rodney McMullen, president and CEO in December. Looking
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Phoneix, Arizona-based Fresh Thyme Farmers Markets, a new retail banner created by veterans of the Sunflower and Henry’s chains, plans to open its first store early next year in a Chicago suburb and 54 stores across the Midwest during the next six years. President
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Carrefour plans to expand its reach from 236 hypermarkets in 73 cities to 100 Chinese cities in three years and to open more than 20 hypermarkets every year on the Chinese mainland. Sales in the Chinese mainland increased 4.7% in the third quarter year-on-year and the
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J Sainsbury appears to have reclaimed its position as the second-biggest grocery retailer in Britain for the first time in a decade from rival Asda, owned by Walmart. Sainsbury’s has already overtaken Asda in Nielsen’s market share data. For the 28 weeks ende
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The United Nations declared 2013 “The International Year of Quinoa” in recognition of the indigenous communities from the Andean highlands, who have domesticized this unique crop with its high nutrient content. But the global quinoa craze started in recent yea
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Hong Kong is recognised as Asia’s distribution, trading and services hub for a wide range of consumer goods, a theme at Hong Kong business seminars held in Australia this fall. Asia household consumption expenditure growth is higher than North America and Europe and
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With heated GMO labeling debates headlining mainstream media in the United States, American consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about conventional food practices and are seeking organic and natural options more than ever before. This consumer awakening has drive
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Fulda-based regional German grocer tegut… is undergoing renewal and expansion under the ownership of Swiss retailer Migros Zurich. Warren Beaumont spoke with head of corporate communications Stella Kircher. Thirty years ago, tegut… was one of the first re
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At the second edition of the Latin American Sustainable Cosmetics Summit in Sao Paulo, October 15-17 over 150 entrepreneurs gathered to share accomplishments and discuss challenges in the development of a social and environmentally responsible cosmetics industry. In a se
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The U.S. Organic Consumers Association reports that hundreds of items found on supermarket shelves, such as shampoos, cleaning supplies, cosmetics and food packaging, could get chemical makeovers under new rules being put in force by California from October 1, 2013. Stat
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After migrating from Japan to Brazil, Mr. Norihito Matsuda discovered the health benefits of propolis while working in the poultry industry as a young electrical engineer. Propolis was used to clean minor cuts and scratches. It was also effective in alleviating sore trota
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Made by Taste&Beauty of Ober-Grafendorf, Austria, Styx chocolate has enjoyed increasing demand for its organic and sustainably made chocolates in 2013, led by the introduction of the Styx brand into Russia. Styx’s origin had its beginning in the idyllic and dee
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Organic and ethnic were the product categories in highest demand during the 5th edition of Expoalimentaria Peru, October 15-17th. Over 2,300 international buyers and 33,000 visitors from 50 countries attended the annual international event. This year 600 exhibitors from 1
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Launching a new product in the natural and organic market has it’s own unique set of questions such as: How do you know what superfood trends to jump into, or which ones are already saturated? Where can you find an organic, glutenfree, non-GMO verified co-packer? Ho
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While the Western European chocolate confectionery market reached a sweet £19 billion (pounds) in 2012, it looks like it is the Germans who have the sweetest tooth in Europe, according to the latest research from Mintel in October. Germany accounted for a quarter (
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Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil trader announced a No Deforestation Policy response to pressure from Greenpeace, NGOs and consumers around the world. The policy has the potential to be a landmark win for the world’s forests and the people th
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