Local Produce at Walmart?
18th June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - 1 Comment
NPR has a story today about Walmart’s Heritage Agriculture program through which the company seeks to increase the amount of local produce sold in Walmart stores. The idea behind the prgram is that food is fresher for customers and saves Walmart money in freight costs. Here’s an excerpt:
“When you’ve got a private organization the size of Wal-Mart, anything they do in a positive direction for the environment, if they can find a better business model, then the ripple effects are huge,” says Michelle Harvey of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Harvey notes, for example, that Wal-Mart now grows cilantro for Eastern stores in Florida rather than California. Costs are lower, and the herbs are fresher for customers.
Wal-Mart won’t say what its long-term goal is for the Heritage Agriculture program, but it says as of today, 6 percent of its produce is grown in the same state it’s sold.
Read the whole article here. The comments to the NPR story are pretty interesting. Is it just a PR move for Walmart? Are they trying to take business from farmer’s markets? Or is any “green” move by such a large company a good move?
Posted on: June 18, 2010
Filed under: local food
1 Comment
carsi
June 21st, 2010 at 10:09 pm
whatever the motivation, i think this is pretty awesome
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