Kroger counters Amazon’s grocery offensive with Ocado deal
A strategic alliance between Kroger and UK grocery e-commerce company Ocado, which has technology that automates the processing and fulfillment of online grocery orders, will help Kroger beef up its online capabilities. As part of the licensing deal, Kroger will also take a 5 percent stake in Ocado. Together, the companies will identify sites for three automated distribution centers this year. Read more at Bloomberg…
Free-range beef bound by the blockchain
Sen. Ogden Driskill of Wyoming, who’s also a rancher, has teamed up with two other ranchers and joined the startup BeefChain to implement blockchain as a way to guarantee the integrity of grass-fed beef—and hopefully capture more value for the ranchers who raise their cattle that way. Ranchers are tagging their calves with RFID tags, and the next step is to select a blockchain platform that will allow them to track their cattle across the supply chain. Read more at Forbes…
Americans want non-GMO, gluten-free superfoods with probiotics—for their pets
Human nutrition trends continue to permeate the pet food market. For example, sales of pet foods labeled non-GMO shot up 29 percent over the last year. Probiotic-containing dog food sales jumped 139 percent—and those shoppers spent an average of two times more per store visit than the average shopper who bought dog food, according to Nielsen. Read more at MarketWatch…
Greenway Coffee teams up with Snap Kitchen for new dairy-free beverage bar
Malk BevBar is a new partnership between Malk Organics and Greenway Coffee that will bring a dairy-free beverage bar to a Houston-area location of the fast casual restaurant Snap Kitchen. On the menu are smoothies and coffee drinks made with nut-based milks. Read more at Eater Houston…
These two founders want to do transparency right
Apparel entrepreneurs Wanda Weller and Kevin Dixon hope to drive change toward more ethical manufacturing with their new venture, Alterra Pure. They’re producing organic cotton linens sourced from a co-op, manufactured in a LEED-certified facility and packaged in recycled and upcycled materials. Organic cotton currently accounts for less than 1 percent of the global cotton market, and production has decreased over the last decade even as demand has grown. Read more at Forbes…
