Green Memo: Retail Promotions

Barneys New York: Dreaming of a green Christmas

Upscale department store retailer Barneys New York has gone all out to create a slightly tongue-in-cheek but earnest green holiday promotion this year in its famous New York City store.

"The green movement can be earnest and preachy," Barneys creative director Simon Doonan told the hintmag.com fashion magazine today. In response, Doonan has created green-themed store window displays with a bit of fun to them. There's Rudolph the Recycling Reindeer, with (we presume) his nose so green he will recycle all your gifts tonight. There's nothing preachy about green-nosed Rudolph though. He gets his eco-message out with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.

The (green) Twelve Days of Christmas also have a prominent spot in one of Barney's large display windows. These green days leading up to Christmas feature "three solar panels, two tons of tofu, and a Toyota Prius in a pear tree." says Doonan.

The promotion just began and will run through Christmas eve, December 24.

Barney's also has teamed up with some green-minded designers who are creating "eco-friendly" clothing products, accessories and other goods for sale at the store during the "green" holidays. Portions of the sale of each of these items will be donated to environmental charities and organizations, says Julie Gilhart of Barneys.

One of the main green designer product features is the limited edition Goyard (the designer) grocery shopping bag pictured at the top of the page. The bag is made of 100% recyclable canvas. It sells for a mere $310. However, a portion of that money goes to green charities. We expect the Goyard canvas grocery bag will be a big hit with Manhattan's green-conscious shoppers for the holidays. After all, it's tough to find a decent pair of stiletto high heels at Barneys for $310, the price of the Goyard bag. Therefore, Why not buy it instead and do some good?

The retailer also is selling a selection of limited edition green holiday gift cards. The cards have different green sayings on them such as Green is Groovy, Join The Green Revolution, Save The Planet and other pro-environmental slogans. The gift cards range in value from $50.00 to $1,000.00, and a portion of the sale of each card is donated to environmental charities, like Barneys is doing with the designer items and accessories.

Monday Marketing Memo: Local Foods

Does the 'buy local, eat local' philosophy and strategy conflict with assisting farmers in developing nations who've joined the organic and fair trade agricultural movements?

As our readers know, we write frequently (and generally positively) about the buying and eating locally trend and movement in the Western world, including in the U.S. and UK.

However, we also aren't shy about pointing out the limits of "buy local, eat local," in addition to what we believe is a fact: that peoples from all over the world benefit in the main culturally, economically, socially and politically from buying and eating foods produced in other countries as a way to learn about and better understand others.

Advocating the buying and eating of local foods exclusively is a pre-global worldview in our analysis and opinion. It leaves no room for the many important variables and other crucial aspects of environmental sustainability in a world getting smaller.

Over the weekend, we read a thought provoking analysis and opinion piece on the issue in the San Francisco Chronicle written by William G. Mosely, an associate professor of geography at Macalester College in St, Paul Minn. In his piece in yesterday's Chronicle, Dr. Mosely, who's the author of the book "Hanging by a thread: Cotton, Globalization and Poverty in Africa," posits that the "buy local, eat local" movement has negative consequences in its purest form for farmers in the developing world who've joined the organic and fair trade movements.

As an example of this dilemma, Dr. Mosely, who works with third world farmers, sites a recent event in the UK. Recently, the UK Soil Improvement Association, a nonprofit group that supports sustainable and organic farming, called on the British government to restrict imports of organic produce brought in by air, arguing that the food miles the air-lifted organic fruits and veggies traveled were too many, creating too great of a carbon footprint. In a concession to the fair trade movement, this group would allow for imports from countries actively seeking to promote organic and fair trade markets within their own borders. Despite this concession, Dr. Mosely writes, British fair trade activists are worried.

We aren't sure, nor is Dr. Mosely, if the British government will ultimately pass such a ban. However, the mere proposal and serious discussion of the issue points out the potential conflicts "buy local, eat local" and organic and fair trade can have. This is particularly true since much of the fair trade efforts are aimed at improving the lives of farmers in developing countries. And one way of improving these farmers lives, in addition to paying them more for their crops, is to market some of their foodstuffs in the developed west where it can be sold for more money, returning these profits to the farmers.

In his piece, Dr. Mosely also argues the idea that developing countries should merely create local markets for their crops rather than exporting some of them is a false alternative. He says European and American demand for fair trade products from Africa is surging. These channels are not only bringing a decent return to the third world farmers but also providing and promoting better working conditions and the reduced use of agri-chemicals for these farmers.

Dr. Mosely's concerned that if what he calls the local food craze gets out of hand, it will condemn third world farmers to commodity crop production and ruin their hopes of better returns by continuing to grow and export organic and fair trade fresh fruits and vegetables, along with coffee, cocoa and other similar crops. He isn't anti-local. Rather, in the piece he calls for reason and judgement on the issues.

"While the local food craze is well and good," Dr. Mosely writes, "we should not be so quick to denounce organic and fair trade foods that are imported from the developing world." By shunning these products, we do not encourage local markets to flourish in these countries, but we condemn these farmers to the ills of conventional production for the global market."

Dr. Mosely brings up an important central issue in his piece we believe. That issue is the failure to look at the whole by many rather than the sum of its parts. The whole in this case is economic, environmental and social sustainability globally vis-a-vis food production. The sum of the parts are the organic, fair trade, buy and eat local and other individual movements. To us, the goal should be to integrate all of these food production and marketing sustainability paradigms and systems into one sustainable piece or system. Such a system needs to balance things like eating local with the goals of organic production and fair trade globally, along with numerous other issues.

As mentioned in the beginning of this piece, there are cultural, social, economic and political benefits to nations from importing and exporting food to each other. Developed countries can use food importation as a way to better the standard of living of developing world farmers, as fair trade activists have set their sights on doing. Culturally, learning and sharing other's cuisines and foods is an important first step to social and political understanding.

We agree with the goal of reducing food miles. However, within this reduction must be room for reasonable importation and exportation of crops, foods and related goods for the central reasons we describe above. We agree with Dr. Mosely that the goals of environmental sustainability and assisting developing world farmers don't have to be mutually exclusive. We encourage others--especially "buy local, eat local" activists--to read Dr. Mosely's piece and to think about the issue in a comprehensive, global sustainability sense.

Green Memo

No ham on the side, but these 'Respectful Eggs' are green

A new brand of eggs recently launched in the UK claims to be the world's first "low-carbon" eggs sold in supermarkets.

The egg brand, Respectful Eggs, offers a trifecta of green benefits: The egg-laying chickens live a free-range lifestyle, the hens are fed only a diet of locally-produced grain to reduce the food miles of the feed and thus the eggs' carbon footprint, and the chicken farm in Lincolnshire where the eggs are hatched is powered by solar panels and wind turbines.

The result of these green methods is that free-range Respectful Eggs have half the carbon footprint of standard free-range eggs, according to the company. Respectful Eggs also cost about the same as standard free-range eggs in the UK. The "green" eggs are currently being sold exclusively in the UK at ASDA supermarkets, which is owned by Wal-Mart.

Free-range egg production is becoming a major governmental, consumer and grocer lead movement in the UK. Currently, about 34% of all eggs produced in the UK are free-range. However, experts say that will easily increase to more than half of all eggs being produced free-range in five years.

These experts sight new European Union (EU) upcoming restrictions on the use of hen cages, growing consumer demand for the free-range eggs, and demands being made on suppliers to produce more of the cage-free eggs by grocers. Charles Bourns, National Farmers' Union poultry board chairman, says these three driving forces should significantly increase the expansion of free-range egg producing in the UK in the next five years.. He also said his members are getting increasing demands from UK grocers for free-range eggs.

Meanwhile, the producers of Respectful Eggs, at the Blackberry Lane Farm in Lincolnshire where the hens are raised and the "green" eggs" are hatched, say they're pioneering not only free-range egg production, but green farming overall. They also say the chickens at the farm are living well. In fact, they invite you to visit the farm via the internet and take a look at what the hens are up to using this "Chick Cam" (located at the top in link). You also can read some Respectful Eggs facts, like why the company doesn't use organic grain, here.

Monday Morning Java

News, information, ideas and opinions to begin the week off with a jolt

Wal-Mart World Over Coffee

Business begins early in the morning for those who work for Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation and retailer.

Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO, says he arrives in his Bentonville, Arkansas office each morning at 6:25 a.m. when he isn't traveling. Scott says he chose that particular time because former CEO and current board member David Glass always arrived (and often still does when he comes into the offices) every day at 6:30 a.m. for the 13 years he was CEO.

Wal-Mart regional managers in the U.S. and the nine other countries in the world where the retailer has stores also begin their days very early in the morning. Most are said to be out their front doors at 5:30-6:30 am each morning, headed to a store in their car or to the airport.

The famous Wal-Mart Saturday morning management meetings in Bentonville also get started at the crack of dawn. Each Saturday, the morning-long meeting begins at 7:00 a.m., fueled by plenty of coffee. Further, Even Wal-Mart's annual shareholders meeting is an early morning affair. Unlike most corporate shareholders' meetings which start at about 9:00 a.m., Wal-Mart's begins at 7:00 a.m. And like the weekly managers meetings, hot coffee is abundant.

And lets not forget Wal-Mart suppliers, potential suppliers and other sellers. These folks all try to get early morning appointments at the Bentonville corporate headquarters, as it's said Wal-Mart buyers, in keeping with the company's early morning culture set by founder Sam Walton, are more likely to give a seller a good order or authorize their product line in the early morning compared to in the afternoon. It's the sellers version of the early bird getting the worm at Wal-Mart HQ.

Since Wal-Mart has this early morning culture, fueled by lots of coffee, we've decided it would be appropriate this morning to bring our readers some news, information and thoughts about the world of Wal-Mart this morning in Monday Morning Java.

Wal-Mart News, Opinions and More:

Grocery one of three key sales drivers for Wal-Mart

The role of grocery sales at Wal-Mart continues to demonstrate its importance to the retailer. Grocery sales for Wal-Mart's recently-ended third quarter were up more than 13%. Q-3 ended on October 31, 2007.

Supercenter grocery comp sales were up 5.3%, which played a big role in increasing Wal-Mart's overall comps by 1.5% for the third quarter, according to Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart's chief of U.S. store operations.

Castro-Wright says grocery, health & wellness and entertainment are at present the three key drivers for the retailer's U.S. business. The three areas make up two-thirds of total category sales in U.S. stores, he said. Further, grocery sales account for a solid 40%-plus of those two thirds, according to Castro-Wright.

These third quarter numbers make it clear how important grocery is the Wal-Mart. Within grocery, the retailer also is making a new, major commitment to fresh foods, Castro-Wright says. In a conference call with the media last week, he pointed the to Wal-Mart's new Supercenter in Highland Park, Texas which opened last week, as an example of this new emphasis on fresh.

The new 203,000 square foot store features a fresh pastry shop, open-hearth oven bakery, and a large circular-style deli which features lots of fresh, prepared entrees, full meals and grab-and-go items, Castro-Wright says. He further commented this commitment to fresh will be played out in many of the new Supercenters the retailer opens this year and next. Included will be expanded fresh, prepared foods areas offering many meal solution options for shoppers, he said.

Wal-Mart overhauling it's employee health benefits coverage

Wal-Mart has been under attack from many sides the last few years over its employee health insurance plans. The retailer says it's listened to these critics, and sought out the advice of many experts including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and will now overhaul its employee health and medical benefits coverage.

Wal-Mart says it will make more employees eligible for coverage, lower deductibles and co-payments, and create an overall better health insurance package for its employees. You can read the details of the retailer's plans in this New York Times story and decide for yourself.

Wal-Mart donates to Mexican flood relief

Wal-Mart, which is now the number one food retailer in Mexico, has donated $600.000 to the flood relief efforts in southern Mexico. There are 430 Wal-Mart employees missing after the heavy floods deluged the southern region. Wal-Mart's initial donation is double the $300,000 U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged thus far. Read more here.

New Wal-Mart 'eco-store' has in-store bike shop

The new Wal-Mart Supercenter in Highland Village, Texas, which opened two weeks ago, is the retailer's third "eco-friendly" "high-efficiency" store to open this year. The greener designed stores incorporate advanced environmental design and building principles and the use of energy efficient equipment in them, among other sustainable and conservation-oriented building measures and practices.

The new concept stores also incorporate localism in their design. For example, the Highland Village Supercenter has incorporated the area's local terrain not only into the store's physical design and landscaping, but also into the creation of a entirely new in-store department.

The neighborhood's in the Highland Village area are connected by a system of walking and biking trails. With that in mind, Wal-Mart has created a full-service, in-store bike shop inside the new Supercenter. It's the first of a kind for the retailer, and reflects its increased emphasis on the environment. The department offers a large selection of bikes and has a full-service bike repair shop staffed with trained bike mechanics. A rest area outside the bike shop features a gazebo with seats, a water fountain and free air hoses for bikers.

Wal-Mart ordered to pay legal fees in huge class action lawsuit

Wal-Mart has been ordered to pay 36.4 million in legal fees and expenses to attorneys representing Pennsylvania Wal-Mart workers who worked off the clock in the retailer's area stores. The class action suit involves 187,000 workers, and the total value of the judgement against Wal-Mart is $187.6 million at present. Read more about the lawsuit and related issues here.

Wal-Mart ups its Hispanic marketing profile with new partnership

Wal-Mart USA and Dallas, Texas-based Campero USA, the U.S. foodservice division of the popular Guatemalan-based chicken restaurant Pollo Campero, have struck a partnership in which Wal-Mart will lease space to the growing restaurant chain in its stores. The Latin American chicken restaurant chain is one of that region's largest, serving more than 75 million customers annually.

The deal, with Wal-mart as the landlord and Campero USA as the tenant, will locate Pollo Campero chicken restaurants in select Wal-Mart stores in the U.S. The focus will be on areas and neighborhoods that have a certain percentage of Hispanic residents. Gisel Ruiz, a v.p for Wal-Mart, says the deal will help the retailer to better serve the needs of Hispanic consumers. "Many of our Hispanic customers are Latin American," Ruiz says. "And they are among our fastest growing markets. We know Pollo Campero will add value to Wal-Mart with its premium Latin American restaurant brand.

Campero USA has been expanding throughout select regions of the U.S. with its poplar chicken restaurants. The Wal-Mart partnership should give it a huge strategic advantage as a young foodservice company in the USA. The chain has a goal of opening 500 restaurants in the U.S. by 2012. The new partnership with Wal-Mart will go a long way in helping the company to meet that goal, and will give Wal-Mart another key offering in its growing Hispanic marketing strategy and merchandising practice.

These ten states not the 'top-ten' for Wal-Mart

Writer and Wal-Mart critic Al Norman has a piece in the November 9 Huffington Post where he describes the ten states in the USA where Wal-Mart hasn't been able yet to build a Supercenter in the last couple years--but wants to. Those 10 states are: Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico, South Dakota, Indiana, Vermont, Maine, Delaware, Rhode Island and Hawaii. Norman says proposed Wal-Mart Supercenters are under siege by community groups in these ten states, which is why no new stores have been build of late in the 10 states. You can read more here about Norman's take on what's going on in these 10 states and others regarding Wal-Mart Supercenter proposals.

A green giant warms up to Wal-Mart

Jeffery Hollander, CEO of green consumer products company Seventh Generation, has always said doing business with Wal-Mart would be to him like selling his company's soul. However, the chief of this $100 million a year privately held green consumer cleaning and household products company, is having second thoughts. Hollander recently told Fortune magazine he would consider selling his company's "eco-friendly" cleaning products, toilet paper, diapers and other items to Wal-Mart because the giant retailer is focusing on the environment more.

Hollander tells Fortune his change of heart came about because of the retailer's focus on sustainability issues as well as a private meeting he had with CEO Lee Scott last year. He also says Seventh Generation did an internal review of 17 retailers and graded each of them on their respective commitments to green business practices. It turns out Wal-Mart scored rather high in the review and analysis. Read more here.

Friday Feature: Brand Marketing

Staid brand Maxwell House Coffee reinvigorating itself with premium quality coffee beans and a hip, creative, new-age multi-media marketing and field promotional campaign

Kraft Foods has decided to join the flight among coffee brands to quality, ditching its cheap multi-blend coffee bean formula for its Maxwell House coffee brand for 100% Arabica beans, and creating a hip, new-age web and event marketing and promotional campaign to reposition the brand to consumers.

The advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather New York has created the "Brew Some Good" campaign for the coffee brand. The multi-media advertising and event-based marketing campaign will feature a smart and creative field promotion which begins next Wednesday, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. Starting next Wednesday, and continuing for two weeks, Kraft will pay the highway and bridge tolls for some lucky drivers throughout the U.S., passing out samples of the reformulated, 100% Aribica bean Maxwell House coffee at the same time.

On Wednesday, a busy Thanksgiving travel day, at least 100,000 drivers in eight U.S. markets will get to pass through toll booths without having to reach into their purses or wallets to pay their toll. Instead, their tolls will be on the house--on Maxwell House that is. The toll stations in these eight markets will have signs greeting the drivers saying, "Your toll is on the house (Maxwell House). Each driver also will be given another freebie along with getting their toll paid--a package of new Maxwell House coffee to take home and brew for Thanksgiving.

Along with doing good by paying the tolls of the drivers, Kraft also is doing some good by making a donation to America's Second Harvest Food Banks. The donation is based on the 100,000 free tolls the company is paying. Maxwell House brand will give the food bank system one dollar for every toll it pays on Wednesday, for a total donation of $100,000. Second Harvest is the largest hunger-relief charity in the U.S. It operates over 200 food banks in the country, and provides food to many more local food pantries.

Kraft's creative field promotions and web-based campaign follow on the heels of its recently released TV and print advertising campaign. The broadcast and print ads feature images of adults and children working, playing and cooperating with each other in early morning settings. The voice over (broadcast ads) and text (print ads) says, "Let's celebrate the optimists--the ones who always see the cup half full." The ad's tagline says, "The naysayers, the second-guessers--let them sleep in. It's a new morning. Let's brew some good."

The message of the broadcast and print ads is clear: It's a new morning in America, and the new Maxwell House is for all you optimistic, hard working and hard playing Americans who make this country great.

It isn't just drivers who will get a freebie on Thanksgiving eve. From 7-9 a.m Wednesday morning Kraft field representatives will hand out free metro cards, coffee samples and literature about the "new" Maxwell House coffee to riders of the New York City subway system. Kraft reps will be at five subway stations in New York City's five borough's surprising riders and, as the campaign theme says, "Brewing Some Good."

Kraft will follow up this pre-Thanksgiving day promotional activity beginning next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, by handing out over 1 million free cups of coffee to mall shoppers in 14 U.S. Cities. The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the kickoff of the Christmas shopping season, and U.S. malls are packed with early-bird shoppers looking for deals. The free cups of coffee promotion will continue throughout that weekend.

Kraft is tying these field promotional events, and others, in with a new website titled http://www.brewsomegood.com/, which Maxwell House will launch on November 30. The interactive site will encourage users to post videos, upload photos, and share uplifting stories from their lives and from those around them. The site also has a webcam feature, where users can smile into it and in return get coupons good for discounts on Maxwell House coffee. The positioning of the site is that Maxwell House is the coffee for hard working, positive and optimistic people, just like the broadcast and print ads--and the strategy of the field promotions. It's a fun, light-hearted site with a message.

We see the "Brew Something Good" campaign as a very well integrated brand and product marketing program. And the fact that Kraft has improved the quality of the Maxwell House brand (we tasted it. It's much improved) demonstrates an understanding that consumers want a quality product to go along with a new marketing campaign.

Traditional coffee brands like Maxwell House, Folgers and others have been losing sales to higher-quality coffee companies like Starbucks, Eight O' Clock Coffee, Peet's, Newman's Own, Dunkin' Doughnuts and others. Perhaps improvements like Maxwell House moving to 100% Araciba beans and its launching of a clever integrated marketing campaign to tout the message will bring back some of that lost market share for Kraft.

The quality upgrade and hip, creative campaign makes it clear to us that Kraft realizes it has to go after the natural-specialty foods crowd. These are consumers of all ages (primarily younger rather than older though) who want quality, and who get there information (including advertising) on the web more often than on TV.

The field promotional element should create good will and positive emotions for the brand. Think about it. What's better than having your highway toll paid after sitting in crowded, pre-Thanksgiving holiday traffic for hours. Further, a free hot cup of coffee is a nice treat for shoppers, up before dawn, hitting the mall for a full day of contact shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

Food, beverage and consumer packaged goods companies of all sizes can learn much we believe from the integrated and creative nature of the Maxwell House marketing campaign. It draws attention, while not being blatant. It offers a strong emotional message in its TV and print ads, but a lighter message on its website. And the field promotions get out there and touch consumers where they live, doing something good for them and not asking for anything in return--except for taking the free sample of Maxwell House coffee. In the end though, consumers have to like the coffee.

The Friday Fishwrap

Week-ending news and musings

Zen and the art of hydration: With Aquamantra bottled water you 'are' what you drink

We're all familiar with enhanced bottled water's like Vitamin Water and those with added nutritional supplements, caffeine and other goodies. But Aquamantra "mantra-infused" spring water has taken this phenomenon to the next level. The premium bottled water company, located in the upscale Orange County California city of Dana Point, enhances its three varieties of spring water with a more intangible quantity--loads of positive thoughts and energy.

That's right, the mantra waters are infused with good vibes. Three to be exact. The company's three varieties of spring water, which comes from a natural spring near San Diego, are named "I Am Healthy," I Am Loved and "I Am Lucky." Each variety (or mantra, hence the name) is filled with positive energy and thoughts which the company says results in the water's drinkers achieving those respective states of mind. The waters come in 1 liter plastic bottles, and 16.9 oz "mini-mantra's" have just been introduced.

"The thoughts in the words (I am healthy, loved, lucky) permeate the liquid, influencing the taste and beneficial properties of the water," says the company. "If you are drinking 'I Am Healthy,' for example, you will resonate with the energy to be healthy. 'I Am Loved' will encourage you to feel loved and 'I Am Lucky' will encourage you to feel gratitude for your life and how you want to be lucky," says Alexandra Teklac, Aquamantra's founder.

This isn't a mere marketing gimmick to the company though. Rather, Ms. Teklac and her team take what they've discovered very seriously, including studying the science behind their corporate product philosophy.

Ms. Teklac says Aquamantra was inspired by the 2004 film What The Bleep Do We Know. The movie discusses the underlying quantum mechanics of the world. The film reviews scientific research which suggests how reality is changed by thoughts. In the film, Dr. Masaru Emoto, who wrote a book called Hidden Messages in Water, says his research, based on the principles of quantum mechanics, demonstrates that the molecular structure of water was changed by a Zen Buddhist Monk's thought.

The company just introduced what it calls its mini-mantras, 16.9oz versions of the three Zen-infused waters, for those who prefer a smaller shot of health, love or luck.

Based on this premise, Aquamantra "spiritually infuses" its three varieties of water with deep thoughts and messages of health, love and luck, and designs the labels on the respective bottles of spring water with Zen images which depict these emotions and attributes. The result, the company says, is a natural spring water that is more refreshing, better tasting and more wholesome to drink. And, depending on which of the three varieties you're drinking, helps make you feel more like what you are drinking--either healthier, more loved, or luckier.

(You can read more about the company's philosophy behind their waters here. You also can read more about Dr. Masuru Emoto and his influence on the bottled water company here. Read more about what a "mantra" is and how the company incorporates the ancient scripts into their philosophy and bottled water here.)

You don't have to believe what the company says exclusively either. You can read some comments from Aquamantra drinkers and believers here. We aren't saying the water works or that it doesn't. That's beyond our epistemological knowledge and above our pay grade. However, the mind is a very suggestive entity as physicists and psychologists are demonstrating more and more. Therefore, perhaps the company is onto something. After all, much of branding is pychological anyway, isn't it?

The Zen Masters of hydration aren't just banking on their product's good health, stronger love and better luck mantras to sell water and create loyal customers however. The company has been winning bottled water competitions all over the U.S. for the product's taste and premium quality.

For example, the well-known Berkeley Springs International Bottled Water competition recently named Aquamantra its best tasting bottled water for 2007. The International Bottled Water Association also has given the water a "best" an award for its premium taste quality.

Aquamantra also is receiving positive acclaim for its "mental and emotional energy in a bottle" attributes. Readers of In Shape magazine named the spring water "the most inspirational" water in a June, 2007 poll featuring numerous bottled water varieties. The "I Am Lucky' water was selected by Hollywood's Academy of Awards organizing committee for this year's Oscar Awards ceremony. Bottles of the water were given to nominees as a way to "enhance" their chances of winning in their respective film categories.

The mantra waters are gaining widespread national distribution in the U.S. All the Whole Foods Market stores in Southern California sell the waters, as do a number of the supernatural grocer's stores in Northern California, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest. Nearly every upscale supermarket and natural foods store in Southern California is merchandising Aquamantra waters. Additionally, numerous liquor stores, cafes and restaurants in the region offer and sell the spring waters.

The company just obtained a major distribution achievement. The Albertsons supermarket chain will soon began selling all three varieties of the Zen-inspired waters in 85 stores in its Southwestern U.S. region. The water guru's also have forged a distribution deal with mega-distributor United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) and its new Millbrook specialty foods subsidiary, which UNFI officially acquired just last week. Both distributors will market the waters to natural foods stores, supermarkets and other retail and foodservice venues nationally.

Aquamantra, who's mission statement is "stimulate your soul," was started just a little over a year ago and is growing rapidly. It's national expansion will perhaps bring health, love and good luck to the millions of Americans who now will have the opportunity to sip the Zen-infused waters like many Western U.S. residents currently are doing. And by the look of the company's rapid success, we have a feeling someone just might have offered them a corporate good luck mantra of their own about a year ago.

Tesco Fresh & Easy Update: Oakland, CA

Oakland may be the central front in Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets' Northern California invasion in 2008


As we reported yesterday,Tesco is making plans to launch its Fresh & Easy convenience-style grocery markets in Northern California in a big way next year. The UK-based grocer has already secured its first location, a former Albertsons supermarket building on Bird Avenue in the Bay Area city of San Jose. Tesco will renovate the empty building to fit its 10,000 square foot Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market format. The building is about 40,000 square feet.

We've now learned Tesco might make the Easy Bay Area city of Oakland the central front in its Bay Area food retailing invasion. Oakland city officials and commercial real estate sources tell us Tesco is seriously looking at five potential store sites in the city to locate its Fresh & Easy grocery markets.

The five Oakland sites are:

• 20th and Telegraph Ave
• 17th and San Pablo Ave.
• West Grand and Market St
• 606 Clara St
• Oakland Coliseum Transit Village

The first three sites are in or near Oakland's inner city, an area underserved by retail food stores, especially those offering fresh foods, produce and meats. The fourth location is not far from the downtown core, and the fifth site is a couple miles outside the downtown, and is adjacent to the Oakland Coliseum, where the NFL's Oakland Raiders play their home football games. The Coliseum Transit Village location also is where BART (the Bay Area's light rail system) has a stop. It's also a central hub for local bus lines and taxi cab services.

For decades Oakland, like many other large U.S. cities with substantial low-income populations, has been unable to draw supermarkets or other retail food stores to the city, especially its downtown, inner city neighborhood. This situation has changing for the positive in Oakland this year however--in a big way.

Last month, Whole Foods opened its first store in Oakland. The store, located in downtown, is a European Food Hall-style market, a design first for Whole Foods. The market is in a former Cadillac dealership which the grocer renovated from top to bottom. The food hall-style store is large and offers all of Whole Foods' traditional upscale features: tons of natural and organic groceries, non foods, fresh produce, meat and seafood, an in-store restaurant, and a cafe. The market also offers many specialty and artisan foods produced by local bay area purveyors.

Further, specialty foods grocer Trader Joe's opened two stores in Oakland on the same day about three weeks ago. Both stores are only about a 15 minute drive from downtown and serve neighborhoods that are a mix of upscale young professionals and manufacturing and service workers. These two stores are the first for Trader Joe's in Oakland as well.

Additionally, Bay Area-based Safeway stores recently remodeled one if its stores, located not far from downtown Oakland, turning it into one of its upscale Lifestyle stores, featuring lots of fresh produce and prepared foods, along with natural and specialty groceries, in addition to basic grocery offerings.

On top of all this retail food store activity, the city of Oakland and a local developer broke ground two weeks ago on a huge project called the Harvest Market Center. Located at the popular Jack London Square, just a few blocks from downtown Oakland, the center will be a large public market similar to the famous Pikes Public Market in Seattle, Washington and the popular Ferry Plaza Public Market in nearby San Francisco. The Oakland public market will feature scores of boutique, artisan, natural and organic foods vendors--ranging from fresh green grocers, butchers, gourmet retailers and bakers, to local natural and organic food purveyors and more.

The possible addition of five Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets (at least three in the inner city core) would be a huge boon to Oakland and its residents. Since the stores offer basic groceries along with fresh produce, meats and fresh prepared foods, the markets could serve as primary shopping destinations for many of the city's residents. Further, based on the retail prices we observed at the Fresh & Easy stores which opened last week in Southern California, Oakland shoppers would be able to obtain basic groceries at prices at or below the prices at traditional supermarkets.

This spate of food retailing activity in Oakland--which might kick into even higher gear early next year if Tesco goes forward with its five locations--is due primarily to a policy began about 7-8 years ago by Oakland's then mayor, former Governor of California and now state Attorney General, Jerry Brown. Brown served two terms as Oakland's mayor. He left office at the beginning of this year.

As mayor, Brown instigated an aggressive downtown redevelopment plan which has resulted in the building of thousands of condominiums, townhouses and apartments in downtown Oakland, turning the once "dead after five PM" city core into a thriving residential area. The redevelopment also has brought new hotels, office buildings, restaurants, night clubs, art galleries and retail to the downtown.

The last piece of the puzzle has been food retailers--and if Tesco does locate the five Fresh & Easy stores in Oakland that puzzle will be nearly completed, along with the pieces already filled in by Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Safeway. There's also talk in Oakland that WinCo, the large Boise, Idaho-based discount grocer, might build a huge new store in Oakland.

We aren't surprised Tesco might locate five Fresh & Easy stores in Oakland, including at least three in the inner city. Unlike Whole Foods, which bases it's store decisions largely on a neighborhood's percentage of college degree-holding residents, or Trader Joe's, which generally uses similar demographic variables when choosing store locations, Tesco has said its strategy with the Fresh & Easy format is to intentionally target areas underserved by retail food stores along with more upscale neighborhoods.

For example, its first store in Los Angeles, which opened last week, is located in that city's Glassel Park neighborhood, a primarily low-income area but one that's rapidly moving more upscale. Oakland is the same. Although the city has many lower-income residents, its growth is coming from younger, high-income professionals, who've been moving to Oakland in droves from San Francisco and other Bay Area cities to live in the new downtown housing and take advantage of the city's booming nightlife activity.

While Oakland may become the central front in British grocer Tesco's 2008 Bay Area invasion, we've also learned from our sources that the retailer is talking to city officials and real estate people in cities throughout the Bay Area, as part of its plan to be a major food retailing force in Northern California.

Cities where our sources tell us Tesco representatives have expressed a direct interest in locating Fresh & Easy stores include, in addition to Oakland: Pleasanton (home of Safeway Stores corporate headquarters), Walnut Creek, Concord, Fremont, Pittsburgh, San Leandro, Dublin, Danville, Livermore and Antioch. These cities are all in the East Bay Area.

Many of these East Bay Area locations are either already locked-up by Tesco or the grocer is in various stages of the negotiating process. City officials and real estate sources have provided us with specific locations in many cases. However, we've decided to wait to publish those locations until we have a bit more confirmation.

Tesco also is looking aggressively in the city of San Francisco for store locations. Additionally, our sources tell us the retailer is looking up and down the San Francisco peninsula, from San Francisco, throughout San Mateo county to San Jose. As we mentioned above, Tesco already has secured a store location in San Jose, its first according to the manager of the property. The retailer is looking for additional locations in the city of San Jose, including a number of sites in the downtown core, like it is doing in Oakland. Other Bay Area cities on the radar screen include San Mateo, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto and others.

There are at least 25-30 empty former Albertsons supermarket buildings in the Bay Area, and Tesco is looking at all these locations for possible Fresh & Easy stores. These stores were closed by Albertsons LLC, the entity that bought the Northern California Albertsons division as part of the buyout of Albertsons, Inc. by Supervalu and Cerebus Capital Management. Not too long after that, Albertsons LLC sold the entire Northern California operation to Modesto, California-based Save Mart Stores, Inc. Save Mart has been converting the former Bay Area Albertsons stores to the Lucky Stores banner and the remaining stores outside the Bay Area to its Save Mart banner.

We're hearing from our sources that Tesco is looking at opening as many as 100 stores in Northern and Central California in the next two years, with the majority of those stores being located in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Sacramento metropolitan region also is high on Tesco's agenda for the Fresh & Easy stores.

Update: Five Fresh & Easy stores opened today in Las Vegas

Tesco opened five Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets today in Las Vegas, Nevada. The locations of the five stores are: Tropicana & Durango, Tropicana & Jones, Lake Mead & Del Webb, Bermuda & Silverado Ranch, and Warm Springs and Easter. (The store at left is one of the five that opened today.)

Today's Las Vegas' store openings come on the heels of the opening of the first six Fresh & Easy stores last week (November 8) in the Southern California cities of Los Angeles, Anaheim, West Covina, Arcadia, Upland and Hemet. A sixth store opens Friday (November 16) in the Southern California city of Chula Vista. On November 28, two more Fresh & Easy markets open in Southern California in Laguna Hills and Lakewood. The first Arizona Fresh & Easy stores are set to open on December 5 in Mesa and Chandler.

To date, Tesco has officially announced 122 Fresh & Easy locations for Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. A company spokesperson says the retailer plans to have 50 stores opened by the end of February, 2008. Tesco's goal is to have 200 Fresh & Easy markets opened by the end of 2008.

Like in Southern California, Fresh & Easy staffers opened the Las Vegas stores this morning at 10:00AM with a number of special grand opening events and promotions. However, unlike in Southern California last week when the first six stores opened, there wasn't quit as much media frenzy and fanfare this morning in Las Vegas, according to observers at the stores.

Crowds were brisk but it was much more low-key than in Southern California we're told. This also is evidenced by the huge volume of media coverage the grand openings received last week, compared to what is very little thus far about the Las Vegas; store openings.