Whole Foods Anti-Trust Regulatory Review Leaves Us Confuse
Before beginning we want to admit to any new readers, that when it comes to Whole Foods, NBN is the nerd in the schoolyard who loves it when the bully gets in trouble. In other words we’re fond of slapping Whole Foods around when the company acts a bit holier than thou. Yet for the […]
Why Most Supermarkets Suck
One of the greatest unstated assets Whole Foods has had forever has been evident to anyone who cared to look. Its the dirty little secret about conventional grocers. The simply the fact the most large chain supermarkets suck. The dirty little secret about the supermarket business is that it’s not about the consumer at all. […]
Poor Research Concludes Antioxidants Are Dangerous, Maybe Deadly
JAMA Antioxidant Study Kills Us Or Why We Still LOVE Our Antioxidants The recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is bad science and worse public relations for the supplement industry. If you haven’t heard about it don’t think you missed something. Because taking a selective group of studies that […]
Time Magazine Organic Food Story Gets Lost in The Field
Organic Versus Local Story Confuses the Facts Lately it seems that green issues have become as popular as stories over who’s the daddy of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby. Last year the ever-trendy devoted a whole issue to it. More recently Martha Stewart devoted a week of shows to green lifestyles, so did style magazine Domino and […]
Whole Foods Buys Wild Oats — Part Two
Okay it took us a while to get back to you with our opinion on the big sale. And while we still have out doubts about the impact the purchase will have on operations in the short term, financially the move is strong. In case you’re thinking NBN was just brainwashed by the financial experts […]
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 […]
Is Whole Foods Treating Vendors Like Tony Soprano Treats His Working Girls?
NBN is hearing more and more stories about manufacturer dealings with Whole Foods corporate and frankly we’re wondering if the revolutionary retailer is acting more like a desperate Mafioso. One who is in need of lots of cash to keep from getting ‘hit’ by a mob called Wall Street. For years folks have wondered if […]
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 […]
Wal-Mart Schmal Mart
Nearly a year ago, America’s largest retailer made an announcement. Coinciding with the opening day of Natural Products Expo West, Wal-Mart declared its intention to add thousands of natural and organic SKUs to it shelves. Today that promise seems a lot like NBN’s vow to get to the gym. It just hasn’t happened and we […]