Category Archives: food retail

Stockholm hosting the upcoming FCSI Europe–Africa–Middle East Conference

Next September, from 16th to 18th, 2011 Stockholm, the very first Green Capital  will host the FCSI Europe–Africa–Middle East Conference.

Stockholm has been chosen by FCSI for its long-term target green policy, set to make the Swedish capital a fossil fuel free city by 2050.
The Conference speakers are highly recommended and the opening keynote speaker has been awarded speaker of the year 2009.
The program will be of course focused on the relation between sustainability and the Food industry, dealing with important subjects such as “Water and Waste. About water footprints and solutions to global water crisis. Solutions to the lack of sanitation”. Attendees will also have the chance to participate to interesting workshops such as “Food for thought on climate change: Saving our planet one carbon bite at a time!” or “ Why should a SPA be “green”.

Unfortunately, because of previously planned meetings, I will not be able to attend the Conference but I am sure it will be a great successful event and I wish to our FCSI Italia President Mr. Luciano Cattaneo a nice, enjoyable and profitable journey- feedbacks and updates about the Congress are welcomed!.

I also would like to remind all the FCSI members visiting the Milan HOST exhibition (October 21st – 25th ) that FCSI Italia will welcome all of you at Stand A03-C02 – Hall6.

Upcoming Events: our agenda

Here’s a list of all the leading events that we will follow in the next months.

8th-11th September, 2011: Sana, Bologna IT.
15th-17th September, 2011: FCSI FAME Conference, Stockholm SW
8th -12th October 2011: Anuga, Cologne D
16th – 18th October 2011: Qatar International Environment Protection, Doha
17th-19th October 2011:  Green Middle East, Sharjah, UAE
21th -25 October 2011: Host Milan, IT
4th-7th November, 2011: Salone Franchising Milano, Milan IT
9th-12th November, 2011: Ecomondo, Rimini IT
16th – 18th Nomber: Mapic, Cannes FR
22nd-24th November: Diyafa, Qatar
24th November, 2011: Green Awards, London UK
5th-7th December: World Green Tourism, Abu Dhabi

Meeting you will be a great pleasure: just sent me an email norman(at)ecoffee(dot)it to synch our agendas.

Norman Cescut’s Tweets: August 2011

In case you missed my tweets, here’s a summary of the most important ones.                  You are more than welcome to follow me on Twitter @norman_cescut to get real-time updates. Enjoy!

You are more than welcome to follow me on Twitter @norman_cescut to get real-time updates!

A new shop concept by DESITA and …ECOFFEE

I am glad to announce that DESITA is planning a shop concept for the new image of the Saadeddin pastry shops chain located in many states and cities of the Arabian peninsula, whose first restyling project has been planned for one of its Riyadh branches.

After having spent a couple of months briefing with the client in Italy and in Saudi Arabia and after having visited the shop location in Riyadh, we are now defining its layout following the client wishes and our already confirmed inputs about the sale process. The chain’s new brand image will be a young, fresh, trendy and European one.

The pastry shop project will be developed over an area of about 350 square meters and will include an innovative sale formula, for the Saudi habits, which we are sure will generate great interest and attention not limited to the Arab area only.

Thanks also to our fortnightly experience in the foodservice business, to our knowledge of the Arab culture and customer behavior and to the unlimited trust from our Client, we will merge the local traditions and habits into a new shop concept, designing innovative interiors and also a new way to intend the coffee shop area along the “single” (reserved to men only) and the “family” rooms areas.

It is in fact required in Saudi Arabia that food shops with catering facilities have specifically reserved entrances, men-only sitting rooms and other ones for women and families.

Furthermore, in agreement with the client, the concept is going to be developed following, where possible, the ECOFFEE guidelines as per the use of materials, equipment, products and sustainable solutions.

This important client has been collaborating with us for many years and his trust has always been rewarded allowing his company to be a trendsetter one in his area of business. His willingness to embrace sustainability in this new sales formula will grant him a sure competitive advantage. It is a honor for us to collaborate with such of farsighted and open minded client.

The combination of the new business formula and of the ECOFFEE guidelines applied to this first pastry shop will be next used in all the other chain branches, so that to make it a point of reference for the sustainability trend in a geographical area more and more sensitive to this issue.

A more sustainable coffee begins with a more sustainable water use

Coffee is one of the world’s most valuable commodities, and global annual sales reach up to $70bn (£43bn). The small green bean that has its origins in Ethiopia has long been the brew of choice throughout Europe. Across the pond, office workers clutching towering cups of coffee are a routine morning sight throughout the US.

Even in places known for their tea culture, coffee has transformed social life. Coffee requires only two ingredients – ground roasted coffee beans and water – but in the coming years, the latter ingredient will vex companies that source and market the product.

Coffee is both a labour – and resource-intensive crop to grow. The Dutch NGO Water Footprint Network estimates that a standard European cup of coffee or espresso (125 ml) requires 140 litres of water – which is to say that one part of coffee consumes 1100 parts of water. Meanwhile, droughts in Brazil and Colombia, two of the world’s largest coffee producers, could spark price increases that, in the short term, may contribute to profits, but in the long term will force companies to develop programmes that ensure water conservation throughout their supply chains and especially at the source: farms.

Much of coffee’s water footprint results from the beans’ cultivation. To that end, NGOs such as Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade USA engage farmers across the globe to work together on reforestation projects. While “shade grown” coffee makes for fancy labelling, Rainforest Alliance’s work both preserves the watersheds that provide drinking water while preventing erosion. These programmes provide farmers modest financial returns that encourage them to plant more trees – and reverse the deforestation that resulted in part from the expansion of massive coffee plantations. Companies, like Kraft Foods, with its brands of coffee that includes Kenco, Gevalia, and Maxwell House, have promised to source more sustainable coffee certified by Rainforest Alliance and other third-party certification groups.

Companies that rely on coffee sales to boost their bottom line have responded in kind by becoming engaged at the source. Nestlé UK, for example, funds responsible farming practices in Ethiopia. Coffee farmers in the village of Hama, 310 miles south of Addis Ababa, for years struggled financially and faced declining yields even though the quality of their coffee beans was high. A Nestlé team realised one issue was a wasteful process that separated coffee beans from their pulp. The pulp was a potentially valuable source of compost for the farmers, but instead the farmers discharged it into the local river – where the pulp became a toxin that polluted local water supplies. A pulping machine from South America separated the lucrative bean from the pulp and provided farmers a source of compost, while slashing the ratio of litres of water to kilogram of coffee from 60-1 to 3-1.

Meanwhile, the global giant coffee retailer Starbucks has focused on its water performance within its stores. Three years ago the Seattle-based chain committed to a 25% reduction in water use throughout its stores by 2015. So far the company has reported a decrease in stores’ water consumption by 22%. Much of that decrease has resulted from discontinuing the use of dipper wells, fixtures that constantly stream water to clean utensils and eliminate food residues. That move alone cut Starbucks’ water consumption by about 100 gallons (378 litres) of water per day, per store.

Despite Starbucks’ success, however, companies must work on more efficient coffee sourcing processes throughout their supply chains. Pilot projects like those of Nestlé’s and of Rainforest Alliance’s are templates from which companies can learn if they want their future coffee businesses to not only be sustainable and profitable, but also survive as the global demand for water surges. (Source:Leon Kaye/GuardianUK – Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis)

Tailoring local retailing is the trend

The UK retail industry has been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism over recent years, particularly with regard to the role it has played in homogenising Britain’s high streets and creating a nation of so-called ‘identikit’ towns.

However, Marks & Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland announced last month that the retailer was on a mission to redesign its stores to suit local preferences, based on factors such as affluence, demographics, local competition as well as regional and ethnic differences, rather than on store size.

Tailoring ranges for local demographics is, of course, nothing new, particularly within grocery. Asda, for example, redesigned its Hounslow store in 2009 to better cater for the 70% of shoppers there who were of Asian, Mediterranean, Polish or Afro-Caribbean descent. More retailers are similarly starting to realise that catering for local tastes is critical for success.

James Daunt, incoming managing director of Waterstone’s, appointed after new owner Alexander Mamut bought the chain from HMV Group last month, has implied that the bookseller’s 300-strong chain will be adopting a tailored approach to retail, with ‘bookshops that mirror the tastes of customers as closely as possible’.

Ian Thurman, vice-president of location at data consultancy CACI, which has recently completed a store-segmentation project for footwear brand Clarks, says retailers are putting a bigger focus on locality – and not just in terms of the differences between big cities and the provinces.

‘The demographic differences between a Middlesbrough and a Guildford have become wider over the past few years, even for a retailer such as M&S,’ he says.

In its drive to better appeal to local preferences, M&S will use data from an array of sources, such as attitudinal insights gleaned from focus groups and information from online purchases, all of which will paint a much more detailed picture of who is buying what and where.

Bolland says work on segmentation has already been completed. ‘All stores have been grouped into clusters using several criteria including affluence and age,’ he said when M&S revealed its results last month. ‘In the autumn, we will begin to catalogue pilot stores according to one of these segments.’

Thurman says he is surprised that M&S did not adopt a segmentation approach years ago. Daunt, who joins Waterstone’s next month, is equally adamant that all retailers must prioritise the issue.

‘The best have done it,’ he says. ‘The degree to which they do so is dependent upon what they sell. Starbucks, with 50 products, can differentiate only so much; a supermarket with 20,000 lines much more; a bookshop that can draw from a million titles lies at the extreme end of this scale.’

Nonetheless, the fact that many retailers, including less salubrious ones, have made inroads into segmentation begs the question: why has it taken until now for M&S to adopt a store-segmentation approach?

A spokeswoman for the retailer says it is a case of evolution. ‘Over the past five to six years, we have a made a lot of progress in terms of the logistics of our stores,’ she says, referring to redesigned stores, new structures and layouts.

‘The new chief executive presented his business strategy in November. A big part of that focus is on UK operations, to look at stores and inject further inspiration into them. We’re not looking at ceilings and floors again, we’re looking at the way stores are shopped by customers.’

Beware bespoke

While creating tailored ranges for every store would appear to be the goal for retailers, Tim Greenhalgh, chief creative officer at retail consultancy Fitch, warns that ‘going local’ is not right for every brand.

‘Consumers don’t want everything to be local,’ he says. ‘People get quite excited about what the likes of Zara or Urban Outfitters have coming into their stores. The local thing does work particularly well when you touch people’s everyday lives.’

Mark Dickens, retail innovations consultant at customer communications specialist Wanda Communications, says that consumers should not expect to notice dramatic differences at their local M&S.

‘You might see changes, but they will be subtle,’ he says. ‘The trick is to ensure customers don’t notice. Put simply, customers aren’t interested in brand – they’re interested in buying stuff.’

And customers buying more stuff is what Bolland hopes will be the result of his strategy. If it is, and more retailers follow suit, could such moves reinvigorate the ailing high street?

‘Yes,’ says Daunt. ‘Nothing is more dull than the identikit parade of multiple retailers. Localism within these same retailers would reintroduce the sense of discovery that a diverse high street offers.’ (Source: Ben Bold for Marketingmagazine.co.uk)

Groceries stores getting greener with roof hydroponic gardens

This great idea comes directly from the United States – and it is the best way for selling REAL locally grown products in grocery stores.


It’s in fact no secret that most produce purchased in grocery stores is far from “green,” grown in far away states and countries and transported hundreds, even thousands of miles, adding costs and carbon footprint along the way.

A New York City start-up called BrightFarms hopes to changes all that, one grocery store rooftop at a time. The company plans to design, build, finance and operate hydroponic greenhouse farms on supermarket rooftops, eliminating time, distance and cost from the food supply chain.

“It’s better food, better for the environment and better for business,” CEO Paul Lightfoot told Greener Design during a recent interview. “The idea of growing veggies on the roof of a supermarket struck me as cute, but what I wanted to know was whether it could become a real business, with scale. One of my reservations about local food is that small farms (and most farms near cities are small) can’t compete on price with big ones. So food at many farmer’s markets tends to be a pleasant indulgence for those of us who can afford it.”

 The business premise is that BrightFarms can deliver better, fresher, more nutritious produce. Secondarily, Lightfoot said, it is better for the environment. The hydroponic greenhouses (which uses only water and nutrients, no soil) would focus on high-volume vegetables such as lettuces, tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers and peppers, typically at a cheaper cost.

“In some instances, we’re actually selling for less,” Lightfoot said. “We can pretty much match the market’s wholesale tomato costs. We can beat the market’s loose leaf lettuce costs.”

Although he would not reveal which grocers BrightFarms is currently speaking to about installing the rooftop greenhouses, Lightfoot said seven large retailers have signed letters of intent, noting that he expects a few of them to be built before the end of the year.

BrightFarms grew out of New York Sun Works (WYSW), a non-profit organization set up in 2006 by environmental engineer and urban farming visionary Dr. Ted Caplow. Its mission was to design and promote ecologically responsible systems for the production of energy, water and food in the urban environment. In 2007 NYSW launched the renowned Science Barge, prototype urban farm.

Last month, BrightFarms announced the completion of another round of financing through private investors, however it did not disclose the amount of money raised. (Source: GreenRetailDecisions)

Coffee and tea drinking habits in Asia: when culture matters.

Evening drinking habits differ from country to country, and this is very important when creating customer-centric food Retail concepts, as our DESITA and ECOFFEE projects are. In Singapore, for example it’s not unusual to see coffee shops packed at 11pm/12 midnight every night of the week including weekends. This experience is replicated across many countries in the region from India to Malaysia, Vietnam to Indonesia.

The culture of drinking in Asia is not about alcohol it’s about coffee and tea. It’s still about friends but it’s sober conversation as oppose to drunken ones. There are more coffee shops in Singapore than bars. Coffee shops are growing at a faster rate in India than any other form of F&B outlet. This appears to be down to more affluence, a desire to eat and drink out and a predominantly non-drinking culture. Of course there are a mass of bars in Singapore and across Asia but these tend to be filled with expats and Chinese and focused on certain areas and linked to Karaoke.

Religiously Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – the main religions across the region – actively prescribe non-drinking of alcohol to their followers. Singaporean’s are just not brought up to get drunk in the way their English and American counterpart’s inparticular are. This in turn leads to a more civilized society, there are no drink related injuries for hospitals to deal with and society to pay for. There is not the violence that happens every weekend in most towns in the UK, no alcohol means that it just doesn’t happen, it’s just not accepted and not desired.

From a marketing point of view it means that if you want to target these people you have to think in a more sophisticated and creative way. Starbucks may be much maligned but they, Costa and other Western brands are growing in Asia at a rate of knots and along with the monster Asia coffee brands like Gloria Jean’s,Café Coffee Day and Coffee Bean are more effective at reaching many Asians than marketing through bars and alcohol. (Source: BrandRepublic; Picture: 4theloveoffood).

Walmart and its Green Revolution: a book talks about it

A new book, published this month, reveals Walmart’s struggle to redefine what it means to be green in the world of big business.

“Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story off Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Edward Humes, recounts the collaboration between Walmart’s former CEO H. Lee Scott, and later Mike Duke, Scott’s successor as CEO, and white water expert-turned Blu Skye sustainability consultant Jib Ellison.

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Humes, author of Eco Barons, tells of a small project initially intended to insulate Walmart from environmental criticism into a massive sustainability makeover, which now has snowballed beyond the retailer to influence whole industries, from apparel to dairy to banking, according to Amazon.com.

Ellison instituted a project at Walmart called “The Index” that challenged suppliers to root out inefficiency and waste, which the book details. Packaging shrank, saving millions of gallons of water, millions of pounds of cardboard, not to mention diesel fuel. Walmart’s sheer size, coupled with its lowest-pricing mission, means that producers are forced to take steps toward sustainability — and make natural, organic, and earth-friendly products widely available, according to Publisher’s Weekly.

Walmart’s switch to common household products in smaller packaging saved cardboard and the diesel fuel necessary to transport larger boxes.

Other changes including switching from non-recyclable boxes for frozen food to recyclable packaging that then could be sold as a commodity to recyclers.

The collaboration with Ellison engendered far-reaching changes as executives at the world’s largest retail company realized that a clean, green, efficient, less-wasteful, less polluting way of doing business can also be the most profitable way of doing business. (Source: GreenRetail Decisions)

Starbucks getting creative about contactless payment

The introduction of contactless payment options at Starbucks dates back on January 2011, when the coffee-shop chain launched mobile payment in all U.S. company-operated stores, allowing customers to pay for in-store purchases with select smartphones.

Building on the earlier introduction of Starbucks Card Mobile App for select BlackBerry® smartphones, iPhone® and iPod® touch and a successful mobile payment test program, USA customers now have access to the largest mobile payment program in the U.S. and the fastest way to pay at Starbucks.

Starbucks Card Mobile App on iPhone (Photo: Business Wire)

Customers can pay with their smartphone by holding their mobile device in front of a scanner on the countertop and scan the Starbucks Card Mobile App’s on-screen barcode to make a purchase. Customers have successfully adopted this technology in test markets in Seattle, Northern California, New York and more than 1,000 Starbucks in U.S. Target stores.

Mobile payment is built on the Starbucks Card platform, which continues to experience significant customer adoption. Customers loaded more than $1.5 billion on Starbucks Cards in 2010, an increase of 21 percent over 2009, driven in part by the My Starbucks Rewards program which provides benefits to customers who pay with a registered Starbucks Card at participating stores. With the introduction of the quick and easy Starbucks Card Mobile App and the mobile payment feature, customer will find yet another reason to use their Starbucks Card for payment.

“Mobile payment is just one example of how we’re continually innovating on behalf of our customers to enhance the Starbucks Experience,” said Brewer. “A growing segment of our customers use smartphones, and through the Starbucks Card Mobile App, we’re providing them with the fastest way to pay.”

Just a couple of days ago, the coffee-shop chain has signed a deal with Barclaycard, in partnership with Visa Europe, allowing consumers to pay for products by scanning their contactless credit or debit card over a payment terminal.

‘[This] follows our successful adoption of other technologies including Facebook Deals and geo-fencing mobile couponing,’ said Brian Waring, vice-president, marketing and category, for Starbucks UK and Ireland.

Whether they are using the same Starbucks Platform in the UK or not is not clear, especially because there is a big difference between the media that is going to be used for paying – QR code on mobile phones in USA, debit/credit card in UK. Let’s wait until 2012 to see what will happen in UK (Source: Starbucks.com)