Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Wal-Mart increasing organics


Wal-Mart Stores Inc. aims to be the mass-market provider of organic food, and will have doubled its organic offerings over the next couple of weeks, Wal-Mart's head of dry grocery told Reuters on Monday.

[...]

Wal-Mart is the top U.S. grocery seller and also No. 1 in organic milk sales. It carries organic baby food, juice, produce and pasta sauce, but will be expanding its offerings to include products ranging from pickles to macaroni and cheese.

Priest said Wal-Mart has paid close attention to the small-but-growing organic market for several years, and decided to make its move now as studies show a majority of U.S. consumers buy at least some organic food. (Reuters)

Wal-Mart the #1 seller or organic milk? Huh.

This is especially interesting to me because Wal-Mart is angling to build a store within a mile of my house. There's a bit of local opposition (if you can imagine), but if it goes through, they'd be the closest store to me that sells organic food. I'll continue to use the local health food grocer, but it being about 7 miles away will I overcome my misgivings about Wal-Mart's ethics to pick up some milk or eggs there? I don't think so, but stay tuned.

In any case, it'll be interesting to see how their prices compare to my grocer's. When local mainstream grocers have added organics, their prices have always been higher.

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