Roundtable Healthy Food Choices

February 4th, 2010 an international elite group of seventeen thought leaders representing top universities, major institutions and food companies discussed long-term healthy food choices in Western society.

Their goal was to clarify and group controversial issues and generate innovative explanations and solutions. The results of the roundtable will enable public and private parties to identify actions to promote a healthier lifestyle in general and healthier eating habits in particular.

The Roundtable on Encouraging Healthy Food Choices
is an initiative from Wageningen University and food retailer Royal Ahold. We aim to explore the knowledge and expertise of different disciplines within science about Western food choices, and to make this knowledge actionable.

And actionable it is…. Look for yourself! We invite you to explore this site and ideas in order to contribute to the improvement of our society’s health.

Arkansas!

Yes, that's where we went. We visited the University of Arkansas and some business with its HQ over there. What happened? Tons of ice kept us there a day longer. Which was actually helpful. It enabled us to visit this pretty simple office with a large cafetaria with nobody and therefore we had a lot of time to discuss all those things we always wanted to discuss with each other. Loads of people stayed at home, we had to deice our car of 1 inch of ice before hitting the road. Enrique, Chief of Staff Ahold USA, did his best to crack the ice!

I finally did it. I cooked from the cookbook of the Vrolijkheid and Ahold. All these lovely recipes just ask to be cooked. The Vrolijkheid forever making sure something nice happens in the lifes of asylum kids. We try to support them. So we produced a cookbook together. And I cooked. Tibetan soup and Israeli salad. And it tasted good!

Albert Heijn for Africa: no charity!

Yesterday we had the board meeting of the Albert Heijn Foundation. It was great to hear about all those good things that are happening throught the cooperation of Albert Heijn, ICCO, FairMatch Support and our suppliers in Africa. Just being a retailer that wants to create long term relationships with suppliers to ensure future volume, quality and reasonable price. Therefore AH is investing into community projects through the foundation: water systems, learning centers, HIV/Aids programs etc. etc. No charity, no way. Just good business sense and coop at its best!

Walmart Sustainability Consortium: good slow start - reprise

The end of last month I went to Washington DC to participate in a meeting of the Walmart Sustainability Consortium. Walmart started some time ago asking its suppliers to fill a scorecard on packaging. The feedback from some major suppliers was that they thought Walmart should organize a joint effort with other retailers to start asking for that kind of info, otherwise they would end up with an organization full of Chief Questionnaire executives. And so Walmart did. Together with the University of Arkansas (watch the pronounciation... , something like "arkensow"...) and Arizona they developed the Sustainability Consortium, a joint effort of retailers, manufacturers and civil society, to create a common standard for the footprint of a product related to environmental and social issues. I think that was a great thing to do. Of course we spent way too much time on bureaucracy during the meeting, I guess that is the norm these days...

Anyway, good slow start, promising for the future!

Anuga: nice to meat!

Have I ever seen so much meat in one place. Bratwurst all over the place, steaks, lambchops, chicken wings, porky tails. Ich bin ein Berliner in the literal sense of the sentence. It does not look like the food industry gathered at the Anuga, one of the big food exhibitions in the world of the food industry, has a clue about global warming and what that has to do with the consumption of meat. With some effort I found two exhibitors of 'non-meat meat'. Way to go baby!

Red Hat

Red neck, red hat? Yesterday evening we had a great debate in "De Rode Hoed", a famous used to be church, now used as a debating center on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Prof. Van der Ploeg talked about the terrible empires of food in the world, including us, basically trashing the farmers by controlling the full supply chain. And of course we objected. It is all very nice to say that we make enormous profits by exploiting farmers, but we still only make 4 cents on every Euro that we sell. Jan Douwe van der Ploeg's favorite model is, as he calls it, farmers agriculture. That is not a contradictio in termino, no, it just means that he talks about smaller farmers diversifying into businesses that make money. And that we applaud. For the rest, we are just a retailer making sure it is operating in a fair way with its suppliers and by buying and selling we make some money.