Organic farm co-op aims to be world’s largest food producer to use 100% renewable energy

By 2019, Organic Valley will be able to source all of its electricity from renewable sources, and increase overall solar energy usage in Wisconsin by 15 percent, if all goes as planned in a new partnership with the Upper Midwest Municipal Energy Group and OneEnergy Renewables. The partnership will also incorporate meadows with native flowering plants and grasses in its design to double as bee and butterfly habitat. “Our hope is that this partnership to install community-scale solar will be replicated by municipal utilities around the country and propel more rural communities toward economic stability and energy independence,” says Organic Valley’s sustainability lead Jonathan Reinbold. Read more at Co-Op News…

How Bulletproof’s Dave Asprey is expanding an international brand

Dave Asprey knows a thing or two about building a brand—both a personal brand and a consumer products brand. He’s a biohacker, an author and an entrepreneur. His message to other entrepreneurs trying to change the world? Tell your story to others, in person, whenever possible. “You are more impactful if people can hear you,” he says. “Get on radio shows. Be on podcasts.” Read more at Forbes…

Kellogg, it’s grrr-oan!

Securing the $600 million deal to acquire RxBar was just the beginning for Kellogg’s new CEO Steve Cahillane. Bloomberg columnist Tara Lachapelle writes that other brands the cereal company has acquired that should be doing well in today’s consumer climate, like Kashi and Morningstar, have actually lost market share over the last five years. Cahillane has signaled that there may be more deals to come, but is that strategy too little too late? Read more at Bloomberg…

How much food do cities squander?

Researchers dug through residential trash bins in Denver, New York and Nashville, and asked more than 600 residents of those cities to keep kitchen diaries to document what they threw away and why. The findings? In Denver and New York, the majority of food waste was generated by consumers; in Nashville, consumers and restaurants were about tied. Interestingly, only 4 percent of residents said they had discarded food because it was past the expiration date printed on the package. Read more at City Lab…

‘Gluten free’ label to be removed from Cheerios in Canada

The company maintains that its oat-based Cheerios don’t contain gluten but is pulling the labels from its boxes in Canada. The Canadian Celiac Association sounded the alarms when Cheerios adopted the gluten free label last year, claiming that General Mills hadn’t made public enough detail about its testing procedure to ensure that the cereal was avoiding cross-contamination. Read more at CBC News…