Documentary GARBAGE DREAMS Might Change Your Life Or At Least Your Attitude Towards It
At NBN we think and write an awful lot about consumer products, their distribution, and consumption, and over consumption too, so it’s all too easy to fall into the conventional thinking of the proudly left of center, light-footed Eco-conscious American. So we frequently have to remind ourselves that most of the complaints we have are […]
Better Options for Germ Fever
We’re old school. Whether it’s constant chatter about the H1N1 virus or volunteering at the ever so sneeze ridden High Horizons Elementary School in Bridgeport, Connecticut we just wash our hands a lot and JUST SAY NO to Purell and those other hand sanitizers. Call us paranoid and you might be right but NBN worries that all […]
The Ginger People Spice Up Expo West
Let’s begin with an editorial disclaimer. NBN loves this brand. The Ginger People make honest products and unlike so many manufacturers today, aren’t peddling their wares based on some mildly truthful health claims. What they do peddle is good tasting products wrapped up in playfully creative packaging. We bee lined to the booth to see if […]
Hain’s Spectrum to Sponsor TV Cooking Show
In noteworthy news for a company that we frequently think has too many brands to manage, Spectrum Organics will be a major sponsor of noted chef Jacques Pepin’s new TV show, ‘Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food My Way’, starting this fall on PBS. Creative moves like this have been historically absent in Hain’s recent strategy, and should provide […]
John Mackey on Conscious Capitalism in Huffington Post
As we’ve written here, whatever you think about Whole Food’s John Mackey he’s worth paying attention to. Furthermore despite our criticism, the fact is that we in America would be a lot better off if our corporate leaders were a lot more like him. Like many libertarians we think he is about as naive as most second […]
Wal-Mart’s Corporate Sustainability Consultancy?
A story at GreenBiz.com recently caught our attention. Turns out that there’s an interesting side business for the Walmart, that epitomizes much of the problems with American market capitalism When Wal-Mart isn’t getting vendors to pare prices down to the bone or leveraging new locations to maximize business from rural Americans with too few places […]
USDA To Start Spot Testing Organic Products, Media Makes Hay Over It
Given the current failure of proper government oversight into a wide range of businesses –banking, finance, mortgage lending and meat processing to name just a few, the fact that USDA announcement that it would begin more rigorous spot checks on organic products was greeted by some in the media as evidence that the organic is meaningless left […]
Reader’s Digest Must Be On Crack—Suggests Benefits of Vitamins Folk Tale
Given all the vitamins NBN has taken since the 1980’s if the Reader’s Digest story is accurate, I must have died a hundred deaths by now. Read the links below. Or just ignore the folks who must be on somebody’s payroll. Or maybe just supremely stupid. http://drugstorenews.com/story.aspx?id=133561&menuid=793 http://www.naturalproductsmarketplace.com/articles/2010/03/crn-counters-readers-digests-vitamin-myths.aspx http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100255816 http://nutritionbusinessjournal.com/alternative-medicine/news/11-18-study-deals-a-second-blow-vitamin-e-c/
Ingelhoffer Launches Organic Mustards
Back in the mid-90’s NBN ended ten years of working in natural foods retail to hit the road. No nothing romantic, we’re not talking Kerouac, here. He became a traveling salesman. Yes NBN was looking for love in the form of sales commissions all over the San Francisco Bay area working for what was then […]
Honey Pack Up the Car We’re Going Off the Grid
Ever since NBN saw John Cassavete and Gena Rowlands in Paul Mazurksy’s contemporary film version of THE TEMPEST we’ve dreamt about moving away from it all. The funny thing is this was long before NBN had even reached the not so ripe age of thirty. So you might imagine the dream still lives but frankly its […]