Wal-Mart to the World: We Want to be the #1 Organic Retailer
Wal-Mart’s recent announcement that it plans on rapidly expanding its selection of organic items in its stores garnered plenty of attention. Yet NBN believes that while Wal-Mart is seriously considering the opportunities here, we aren’t holding our breath. Of course we know that there will be more and more organic milk, peanut butter and dry […]
Do Natural Products Expo Attendees Drink More Booze
A little known fact, or should we say rumor, came our way last week. Turns out that the staff at the Anaheim Marriott stated that they serve more alcohol at the hotel bars during Expo West than any other convention.”Bartender, I’ll have a double Maker’s Mark and a some carob coated rice cakes, please.” For […]
Natural Products Expo West—Ah, Anaheim
NBN will have plenty more on the show of shows (with apologies to Ed Sullivan) but an early look tell us that they’re are more new products here than we’ve seen in years. Additionally we;ve noticed lots of folks crowding the floor who we’re sure don’t know the difference between barley malt and Birkenstocks. In […]
It’s March, so I Must Be in Anaheim at Expo West
Lots of New Products, Lots of People Crowd Show Floor as NBN Says, “Get Me Some Yerba Mate” NBN will have plenty more on the Show of Shows (with apologies to Ed Sullivan) but an early look tells us that there are more new products here than we’ve seen in years. Additionally, we’ve noticed lots […]
Wal-Mart’s New Campaign Makes Us Queasy
New ‘Humanitarian’ Strategy Revealed As noted in the March 2nd New York Times, Wal-Mart’s new marketing strategy, that includes selling premium items across all segments isn’t about capturing more and more retail sales it’s a humanitarian effort. The low price message is now history. In its stead Wal-Mart’s new campaign is to convince America that […]
Horizon PR Machine Polishes Its Image-Or Why Cows Love Dean Foods
Ten years ago it would have taken more than a strange day in May to envision a company synonymous with organic to produce a long-winded brochure about animal well-being. Yet in today’s world of corporate organic agribusiness and in a culture where image rules the roost, or in this case, the herd, Horizon Organic Dairy […]
Whole Foods Buys Wild Oats for $565 Million
While here at NBN we’ve been predicting the sale of Wild Oats for more than year, last week, when we wrote “sooner or later some mid-size conventional chain will be more than happy (desperate, really) to buy Oats for top dollar little did we guess that the buyer was going to be none other than […]
Michael Pollan Berates Nutritional Science and Gets It Wrong
It took us more than a few wine laden conversations to figure it out. Michael Pollan is getting confused. In his NY Times Sunday Magazine cover story www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?ex=1176955200&en=108422e8afc956dc&ei=5070 the normally brilliant social critic missed the boat, the dock and landed on the wrong coast. What Pollan did was especially upsetting to NBN, as his leadership in […]
Wild Oats Products Hit Price Chopper—Is the Brand Worth More Than The Stores
As regular readers know we have been following Ron Burkle’s interest in the Wild Oats chain closely. So far, despite his nearly 25% ownership and placement of many of his people at the helm, things have remained pretty much the same at Oats. At least so far. More recently we’ve talked to folks who suggest […]
Rethinking Wild Oats
Could It Be Time to Call Your Stock Broker? Recently I had an interesting conversation with an industry friend; one that started out as a debate about Wild Oats and ended up with NBN thinking about the perennial also ran a lot differently. What I noticed is this. So what if Wild Oats is the […]
