Peapod meets CSA?

Cranky Consumer tests services that deliver organic and locally grown produce to your doorstep.

Secret World of Trader Joes

In Fortune, Beth Kowitt had an eye-popping piece called “Inside the Secret World of Trader Joe’s.” The funky, gourmet grocery chain is actually owned by the secretive Albrecht family from Germany. Many of the products are made by large corporations — the pita chips are made by a division of PepsiCo and the yogurt is actually made by Danone Stonyfield Farm.

The company has brilliantly seized on the growing sophistication of American food tastes. It offers a much more limited selection than its rivals, thus reducing the anxiety of choice. It has an efficient supply chain (the Tasty Bite Punjab Eggplant that sold for $3.39 at Whole Foods in Manhattan sold for more than a dollar less at the Trader Joe’s in Stamford, Conn.). It fosters community and makes shopping a form of belonging.

Abel Sanchez - the techie at 1000radishes.com

Walmart as the new champion of local farms? (The Atlantic

My last post of 2010 has a perhaps appropriate world turned upside down feel to it. Who knew that Walmart has a senior director of local and sustainable sourcing? Or that Walmart now sells locally grown foods? The author, Corby Kummer, is a champion of the Slow Food movement. What is the world coming to?

"The first thing I saw, McIntosh apples, came from the same local orchard whose apples I’d just seen in the same bags at Whole Foods. The bunched beets were from Muranaka Farm, whose beets I often buy at other markets—but these looked much fresher."

Tod Dimmick - Foodie of 1000radishes.com