Five years after moving from NYC my heart must officially be in SF, because I lamented reading that Mission Chinese Food is replicating in New York–I don’t want to share Danny with the Big Apple! (full story)

But it wasn’t all bad news this week. Several big food businesses took steps towards healthier offerings made by healthier people and from healthier animals:

In a move that will hopefully inspire other grocery chains, Trader Joe’s signed a Fair Food Agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida; it requires them to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes and to ensure better working conditions for tomato workers: (full story)

And McDonald’s said it will work with its U.S. pork suppliers to phase out the use of gestation crates, admitting that the metal crates were “not a sustainable production system for the future”. (Wondering how the National Pork Board responded? They’re defending stalls as a “conventional” practice and saying that alternatives, including open pens and pasture, have “welfare advantages and disadvantages that must be considered by an individual farmer”.) (full story)

The House introduced a bill that would require labeling on egg cartons to specify whether the eggs are from caged, cage-free or free-range hens; the American Farm Bureau Federation (a trade group for farmers), National Pork Producers Council, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association oppose the bill, fearing this humane regard for the well-being of farm animals will spread to their own industries: (full story)

Mars candy company has made a move to focus on “reasonable snacking”, pledging that by the end of 2013, it will stop selling chocolate with more than 250 calories-goodbye king-size Snickers! (full story)

Using a strategy of “price perception”, Whole Foods is looking to broaden its socioeconomic appeal by marketing to a less affluent clientele with smaller stores: (full story)

Dog lovers, I don’t even know what to say about this one but I think you’ll love it: (full story)

The FDA is on the brink of approving genetically engineered salmon for human consumption. This would be the first genetically engineered animal on supermarket shelves in the United States. The salmon is engineered to produce growth hormones year-round that cause the fish to grow at twice the normal rate. The government already requires labels to tell us if fish is wild-caught or farm-raised – don’t we also have a right to know if our salmon is genetically engineered? Without labels, we’ll never know.

More than forty countries, including Russia and China, already require labels on genetically engineered foods. As Americans, we firmly believe that we deserve the same right to know what we are eating.

That’s why I signed a petition to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which says:

“Commissioner Hamburg, we urge the FDA to require the mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. We have a right to know about the food we eat and what we feed our families, but under current FDA regulations, we don’t have that ability when it comes to genetically engineered foods. Polls show that more than 90% of Americans support mandatory labeling. Such near-unanimity in public opinion is rare. Please listen to the American public and mandate labeling of genetically engineered foods.”

Please sign the petition as well so we can all be sure to know what is in our food and where it is coming from.

Click here to add your name:

http://signon.org/sign/tell-the-fda-that-we?source=s.fwd&r_by=2559843

Thanks!

–Sam

Low cattle supplies in 2012 (the herd is the smallest its been in 60 years) are expected to drive up beef prices for the second year in a row: (full story)

Tackling challenges of access to fresh and healthy food for all, a brother-sister duo have opened a new kind of grocery store at “the intersection of food justice and high-concept retail” in the Castleberry Hill neighborhood of Atlanta; as they say, “if Jay-Z and Kanye can create a lifestyle brand that people in urban and suburban areas aspire to, regardless of their actual income, why can’t we do that with organic food?” (full story)

Food Shift, an organization working to collect unwanted, good quality food from stores and bakeries and deliver the products to agencies that feed low-income people, is partnering with grocers to grow the amount of food that can be fed to people instead of wasted: (full story)

Replacing what used to be “a suitcase of papers on the back of an agronomist’s motorcycle”, iPads are making their way to coffee co-ops and farmers in East Africa, Mexico, and South America; they come loaded with training videos in a variety of languages related to everything from agronomy best practices to growing protein-rich mushrooms out of coffee production waste: (full story)

Alli from our grocery team, Emily Olson of Foodzie and Caleb Zigas of La Cocina share their tips for successfully launching a small food business: (full story)