Artisan, my a***
Two thoughts came to mind when I was casting around for something to write about this week.
Thought 1. I’ve just got back from a...
It’s the system, Mary
So, Mary Portas, Queen of Shops, has been drafted in by Coalition ministers to lead an independent review into the state of British retailing.
Straightaway...
Can technology be the making of community retailing?
Several health store owners I spoke with at last month’s Natural & Organic Products Europe told me that footfall had been significantly down over...
Could your store do with a spot of re-cluttering?
Two or three years ago (just like their UK counterparts) America's biggest retailers started slimming down their inventories and clearing aisles for a cleaner,...
Prepare for the organic surge!
How many scientists does it take to change a climate sceptic’s mind? No, not a joke, a question posed by New Scientist last week.
The...
Why real change is best served up on a plate
At the back end of last year the former director of the Soil Association, Patrick Holden, undertook a coast to coast tour of the...
A precautionary tale
Environmental campaigners have for decades argued in favour of the ‘precautionary principle’. When the possible consequences of something are simply too serious to risk...
Yours awesomely,
“Wow, your blog is awesome. I literally just stumbled across it, but now I’m going to tell all my friends about it!”....“What a great...
Anti-organic, moi?
I felt almost nostalgic seeing John Krebs having a go at organic on last week’s IQ2US debate in New York (see story). It was...
Goodbye to all that?
To delist, or not to delist, that was the question being asked earlier this week at the Ex-Factor Seminar at Natural & Organic Products...
But is it art?
For many people in the natural healthcare field professor Edzard Ernst is sadly best known for his criticism of complementary medicine. So much so...
Signed, sealed and jiggered?
In her opening speech at last week’s Biofach exhibition and Congress, IFOAM president Katherine DiMatteo commented that organic’s future success lay “not with standards...
So, you think you’re normal?
Deprived of the low-hanging fruit of medical research, the drugs industry now has to spend ever more vast sums of money to research and...
Nice Bentley, Mr Scabbins
The keynote speaker at last Friday’s National Health Store Conference, Geoff Burch, cut a slightly unlikely figure for a gathering of natural products retailers....