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All 102 Express stores will close. Picture credit: Walmart

Why did Walmart’s Express small-store experiment end in failure?

By Elaine Watson

Five years ago, Walmart unveiled “a pretty aggressive plan” to open more Express small stores, which gave it “access to places we aren’t in”. On Friday, it admitted the plan had failed, and said it would shutter all 102 Express stores. So what went wrong?

Source: iStock

Can “green” claims turn the GMO debate around in 2016, analysts ask

By Elizabeth Crawford

Growing consumer concern about food waste and the environmental impact of food production could be a “conversation starter” for food manufacturers to shift consumers’ focus on genetically modified organisms away from the perceived negative impact to the...

Rice quotations in 2015 were more stable than wheat or maize.  Photo copyright: Istock /  Jeremy Richards

Global food prices plunged by nearly 20% in 2015

By Niamh Michail

In 2015 prices of the world’s major commodities fell for the fourth year in a row, averaging nearly one fifth (19.1%) lower than in 2014, says the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

FOOD VISION USA: The highlights!

FOOD VISION USA: The highlights!

By Elaine Watson

If you didn't make it to Chicago in October for FoodNavigator-USA's inaugural Food Vision USA event, you missed a truly awesome ensemble of industry experts covering everything from our nutritional needs on a manned mission to Mars to the challenges...

Source: Acosta

Holiday grocery spending on the rise, Acosta finds

By Elizabeth Crawford

Nearly three-quarters of US consumers will host a meal or a party this holiday season, and to ensure their guests leave jolly and full 57% of shoppers say they will spend more on groceries during this season than last, according to a new study by Acosta. 

'We need to make sure that we talk to them eye to eye and not come across as the big global player.'

DuPont nutrition & health chief: We want to work with start-ups

By Shane STARLING

DuPont’s nutrition & health president, Matthias Heinzel, tells NutraIngredients his multi-billion euro division wants to speed product-to-market time and is “totally open” to working with start-ups in open collaboration.

Source: iStock

OTA hopes to “turn the corner” on organic supply shortages in 2016

By Elizabeth Crawford

The Organic Trade Association in 2016 will push forward several initiatives to help industry “turn the corner” on the supply shortages currently holding it back from meeting surging demand for organic products, the group’s CEO Laura Batcha says. 

Inside a No Frills store in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Photo: Raysonho/Wikimedia Commons

New study reveals Canadian attitude towards free-from products

By Adi Menayang

There’s a widening sense of distrust from Canadian consumers against food manufacturers, especially when it comes to free-from claims on packaging. A Mintel study conducted in September found that a whopping 65% of Canadians see the free-from label as...

This Nestlé campaign helped raise awareness of the consequences of iron deficiency (like anaemia) in the Philippines from 19% to 65% in one year

Special edition: Battling malnutrition. Exclusive with Nestlé head of public health nutrition

Nestlé: Profit is not a dirty word in the race against global malnutrition

By Shane STARLING

Commercial and public health gain needn’t be opposed bedfellows in the battle against malnutrition among the world’s poorest people, says the chief of public health nutrition at the world’s biggest food firm.

Label Insight: SmartLabel is not just about QR codes…

Label Insight: SmartLabel is not just about QR codes…

By Elaine Watson

While the media coverage of the new SmartLabel initiative has focused on shoppers’ enthusiasm (or lack, thereof) for scanning QR codes as they shop, or whether it’s just an elaborate ruse by ‘big food’ to avoid mandatory on-pack GMO labeling, the real...

Failure rate for new products is 80% - so what are the most common pitfalls?

dispatches from fie 2015

The 4 biggest mistakes in healthy marketing

By Annie Harrison-Dunn

The Healthy Marketing Team tells us what NOT to do when marketing a healthy food product, based on work by their colleagues at New Nutrition Business.   

Big food firms are climate smart but social media stupid

By David Burrows

Brands are blowing a major opportunity to communicate their sustainability initiatives to millions of consumers with social media updates that are “inane, safe and saccharinely artificial in their bonhomie”, says a report.

Rick Ancietti: “I think in some ways we’ve drifted more towards appearing and looking like a supermarket, which is not our heritage.

CEO: 'The center of the store is not generating the kind of performance that we would like'

New CEO at The Fresh Market to cut prices, reinvent center of store, launch loyalty scheme

By Elaine Watson

The Fresh Market can be fixed, but it’s going to have to cut prices of key-value-items (KVIs), and “reinvent” the center of the store, says its new president and CEO Rick Anicetti, who has spent his first few weeks at the helm “looking under the hood”...

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