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Eating & Living
with Mindfulness
An interview with Bea James of Lunds & Byerlys
on her new appointment to National Organic Standards Board
by Tim Miejan
The recent appointment of a chief manager with Lund Food Holdings -- which operates
eight Lunds, 12 Byerly's and three Rick's Markets in the Twin Cities and surrounding
areas -- was just another level of success for a woman who has supported organic
products most of her life.
 Bea James,
senior whole health manager, recently was named to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) for a five-year term
of office. As a member of the board, James and her colleagues will advise the United
States Department of Agriculture and its National Organic Program on the development
of standards, including the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances.
James was chosen for her "demonstrated leadership and broad knowledge,"
as evidenced by the widespread growth and success of her company's whole health initiatives
and expansion of the company's whole health program called Living Wise since joining
Lund Food Holdings in 1999. James led the initiative that resulted last year in Lunds
and Byerly's becoming the first and only non-natural foods retailers in the Midwest
to achieve USDA organic certification for its produce departments.
In addition to her new post on the NOSB, James is chair of the Food Marketing Institute's
Natural Food Committee and a member of the International Association of Natural Products
Producers. She is an instructor of whole health education and is often asked to speak
at major industry conventions such as the Organic Trade Association's All Things
Organic Trade Confe
Prior to joining Lund Food Holdings, James worked as a mass market sales representative
for Blooming Prairie Natural Foods and as a manager and consultant for two major
Twin Cities' food coops, Lakewinds Natural Foods and The Wedge. She has a bachelor's
degree from Southern Oregon State College and was a protégé of French
and American Cuisine from the John Hurst Cooking School.
She spoke with Edge Life at the Lunds store in the heart of Uptown in Minneapolis.
When were you introduced to organic products?
James: I was raised on natural and organic foods. I grew up in Eugene, Ore.,
and my mom was ahead of her time. She used to take me and my sisters in the wagon
and we would walk down to the small co-op, one of the first co-ops in Eugene. We
would stick our fingers in the bulk peanut butter and try to eat the raisins out
of the bulk bins.
So, you were exposed to it early on as a child.
James: Yes, I grew up on organic soybean casseroles, and I was eating tofu before
most people even knew what it was. So my upbringing really influenced me. Of course,
you go through your rebellious period during your teenage years where you just want
to eat junk food, but once I got out on my own and was in college, I realized that
eating healthy was the best medicine for me.
How did you come to join Lunds and Byerlys?
James: My background is really in the natural food industry and with co-ops.
I'm a hybrid transplant from the organic world into the larger corporate world, a
mainstream grocery store. However, I consider Lunds and Byerlys to be unique in the
respect that it's a family owned business and it's a lot more personable than some
of the other larger grocery chains that are our competitors.
I was working for Blooming Prairie, a natural food distributor, and had Lunds and
Byerlys as my account. I had increased their organic sales 30 percent, and I knew
they were doing a national search for somebody to help them create an organic and
natural program. At that time, because I had a small child, I wasn't really interested,
but they ended up asking me if I would at least consider coming in for the interview.
I went in there full speed, telling them everything about what it really means to
be involved in the natural and organic food industry, that it's not just about capturing
the top 20 percent of organic products that sell off the shelf. It's about understanding
the consumer, being devoted to the industry in a way that you help promote sustainability,
good organic farming practices and recycling.
So, from your perspective, it's more of a mindset, as opposed to just a process
of putting a few things on the shelf.
James: It's a lifestyle. I have tried to help the company build a program that
really helps the consumer who's interested in the big picture of this lifestyle.
The program really has its roots based in trying to have an all-encompassing program
that provides not only the products, but the specialized products for those who have
allergies or are on a specific kind of diet, say the vegan or vegetarian. I'm really
trying to incorporate those products into the program to satisfy the overall consumer.
We have a pretty extensive variety of holistic supplements, homeopathy and herbs,
and we're very careful about the products that we select. We read the ingredients
on everything. We try to make sure that we're picking the best of the best -- and
meet the demand that most consumers have on price.
When we first started the program five years ago, we had a lot of high-end products,
and we've evolved to satisfy both the consumer who is willing to pay the extra dollar
and the consumer who doesn't want to pay extra. When I was hired, the stores had
around 1,500 organic and natural products mostly in grocery, dairy and frozen. We
now have over 13,000 products available in the organic and natural category.
How would you compare what you've been able to offer here compared to many natural
food co-ops in the Cities?
James: We have consumers who are interested in organic and natural products,
and we really try to carry a wide variety of products that satisfy that consumer.
We also have customers who are really just coming here to buy conventional products,
and they're not interested in organic products at all. So we have to try to satisfy
all of our different consumers, and I think we have a pretty competitive program.
However, we are not a natural food store, and we're not a co-op. And I 100 percent
respect and appreciate the natural food co-ops in the Twin Cities. They have really
built the institution of natural food industry. I believe that if it wasn't for what
they have been doing for the last 40 or 50 years, the industry wouldn't be where
it is today. The co-ops really do it well. You walk in there and you know that everything
that you find on the shelf is natural and organic, for the most part. They are the
experts as far as really trying to provide the widest variety of products for that
specific consumer, whereas we are doing our best to provide the best variety for
that consumer, but we also have other consumers that we have to try to satisfy.
What type of organic products are really growing now, in terms of public demand?
James: Organic meats and seafood are really in huge demand right now. There are
a lot of concerns around farm-raised fish, and so the seafood industry is just going
to continue to grow, as is the dairy category. Organic milk is probably one of our
largest areas of growth. The demand is very huge for organic dairy products. Produce
also is a very up-and-coming category, and that's one of the reasons we secured USDA
organic certification in our produce departments in all of our stores.
My fellow co-op friends ask me, "Bea, why did you push getting certification
in the produce? Why does a big company like yours need to worry about certifying
at a retail level?"
And I said it's the right thing to do when you're dealing with produce. We have such
a large count of organic produce items, and produce is a very vulnerable category
in regards to commingling and cross contamination. You have a lot of different people
touching it, and it goes through a lot of different channels before it finally makes
it to the store. I just think it's very important to make sure that you have correct
procedures and processes in place so that the integrity of the organic produce is
maintained. The only way you're going to get that guarantee with produce is if you're
certified, and certification forces our employees in the produce departments and
at our distribution warehouse to make sure that we are following guidelines. We're
being held accountable, and we're going through yearly inspections.
What are the trends in Minnesota consumers buying organic?
James: Perishable products are the biggest trend that is happening right now.
We're seeing a large demand for deli items, so we are currently working on a deli
program so that we have more natural organic products available that are already
prepared that people can just pick up.
I'm encouraged by the new USDA health guidelines that just came out, because the
guidelines talk a lot about not staying away from carbohydrates as a whole. Carbohydrates
are an extremely important part of a good, nutritious, everyday diet. The key is
to look at whole grains being those carbohydrates. I'm a big proponent of that. I
don't advocate Atkins diet or anything that has to do with "low carb."
I think that eating the right carbs is what is important for fiber and the different
nutrients that you need. Quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, millet, all of these grains
that are very common to the natural food industry, are all of a sudden going to start
to become more in the mainstream, because of the whole idea of eating good carbs.
The other thing the natural food industry has seen over the last 10 years has been
such a huge fluctuation in natural remedies, supplements, vitamins, minerals, homeopathy,
herbs, Chinese medicine, you name it. It rides a roller coaster, and it all depends
on what's happening in the media. I have a feeling that that is going to pick up,
because as more people start to eat well and become more conscientious and become
label readers, they realize that, as Hippocrates said, "Let food be thy medicine
and thy medicine be food."
What you consume actually does have a powerful effect on your overall health. And
when you need that extra boost, natural supplements and remedies can actually give
you that, so that you don't have to end up on prescription medicine. So, I'm very
hopeful about natural remedies becoming a large trend over the next couple of years,
too.
How does Minnesota compare with the nation in terms of organic sales?
James: We are actually catching up to the East Coast and the West Coast. The
coasts are pretty progressive as far as natural and organic foods. It's very common
there. For instance, in Seattle there's a store called Admiral Thiftway, and you
go in there and it's a nice, slightly upscale grocery store. They carry some conventional
products, but they put all of their conventional products on the bottom of the shelves,
and then they put all their organic and imported items at eye level and towards the
top. They place the organic products throughout the store.
This is a huge argument in the industry. Should you have a store within a store?
Or should you be integrated within the aisles, which is what we do? I know a lot
of retailers in the Midwest still endorse the store within a store philosophy, but
if you go out and travel and you look and see what the West Coast and the East Coast
are doing, they've just got it mixed in with everything else. That is encouraging
and it leads me to believe that the evolution of organic foods is that it's just
going to be a staple and it's going to be a part of everything else that is expected
to be found on the grocery shelf.
How can a consumer know a product is organic by looking at it? I imagine education
is part of your job.
James: Always look for the organic certifier seal. Plus, there are four tiers
of organic products commercially available. Using cereal as an example, the first
tier is that the product will say "100% Organic Cereal" on the front of
the package. This means you are getting 100 percent organic ingredients in the product.
Second, the product will say "Organic Cereal" on the front. This means
that 95 percent of the ingredients are organic. Third, the product will say "Made
with Organic Corn" on the front of the cereal box. This means that the product
has to have at least 70% organic ingredients. Fourth, the product with less than
70 percent organic ingredients can only list the organic ingredients on the side
panel.
The best way I try to teach people about how to choose organic or natural foods is
to be a label reader. Most people who are serious organic and natural consumers are
label readers. Our store's education program has tried to instill in our consumers
and our staff that it is important to read the label. I have this basic philosophy
that less is more when you're reading an organic label or a natural food label --
or any food label, for that matter. If it looks like the Declaration of Independence,
you might want to reconsider purchasing that product.
We have an education department in our company that handles training and we continue
to evolve the education program. You have to continue to educate your employees.
The organic industry is evolving and changing at such a rapid pace. We usually try
once a year to do a big promotion company wide to help educate all of our employees,
as well as our consumers. Everybody gets briefed on what this big promotion is and
they read the materials. That really helps. We have brochures that talk about our
Living Wise program.
Tell me about Living Wise.
James: Probably beginning in April, Living Wise will only be the name of our
departments where we have the body care and the natural supplements. We have used
it for all natural and organic products in the past. When you go in our stores and
you weave through the aisles and you're looking for organic and natural products,
we have had a lot of consumers ask what Living Wise means. We are changing that to
Natural and Organic, so that people know exactly what they're looking at when they're
standing in the aisle. That will make it easier for the consumer to navigate their
way and find these products.
Our Living Wise program is all about our healthy lifestyle departments. We offer
educational classes and cooking classes, and I teach some of them myself. We have
hired a natural food chef, Linda Harding. She also teaches classes and she does a
lot of the development of recipes in the Byerly Bag and our Living Wise publication.
For instance, in April there's a class on going organic on April 21 and 22, all about
just understanding sustainability and organic farming. A lot of our consumers want
to know the difference between conventional milk and organic milk, or why an organic
banana is better than a conventional banana. In the classes that I teach, I always
do the taste test and do comparisons. We have organic carrots and conventional carrots
and we taste them and we talk about the differences in the flavor. Inevitably, carrots
and bananas are the best thing to do the taste test on, because the organic ones
are always sweeter.
I just try to teach people to take a walk on the organic side. Education really is
key for anybody interested in this. A lot of people who want to eat this kind of
food don't know how to prepare it and don't understand what organic is. A lot of
people in the Midwest still think of organic as a crunchy granola, a heavy loaf of
bread, food that doesn't taste very good, and bland tofu. On the West Coast and the
East Coast, all of the top chefs are using organic foods, because of their purity
and because they are so much more fresh to work with.
Overall, do organic foods still cost more than non-organics?
James: The gap is really narrowing. The cost of conventional products are rising,
while prices of a lot of organic products are dropping. There's greater demand now,
and a lot more farms are getting into it. There's a lot more consolidation in the
industry. The great thing about it is that it's going to promote more organic farming,
because you have to have more product to meet the consumer demand.
How did you come to be on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB)?
James: They contacted me and told me I was nominated, and I said I was interested.
I applied and they reviewed my experience. Apparently there were about 70 other people
who were nominated during this particular year. Four new members were recently appointed,
and I was lucky to be one of those people.
Do you need to be well-versed in all the different subjects that the board examines?
James: Everybody is expected to be knowledgeable about the different issues that
come up. I ust attended my first meeting, so I have a pretty good glimpse into the
world of being an NOSB member. I believe it will require a lot of time and focus
and learning for me. There are some pretty impressive experts on the board. We have
professors and we have chemists and we have environmentalists and we have farmers
and we have consumers. To be an effective board member, it is important to be knowledgeable.
That's my goal, to try to get educated -- self-education, self-absorption, saturation
with everything that I need to learn.
If you could speak to all people at this moment, what would you want to tell people
about organics?
James: I would like to say that organic foods are not just for the privileged
few who understand them or can afford them. Organic foods are about doing something
extremely simple every day of your life that has a dramatic and powerful impact on
future generations and to the Earth. It's one of the things that people can do every
day that's not only giving to the cause of keeping our Earth clean and making it
a better place for future generations, but it's also something that you can give
back to yourself every day, when you become more aware about what you're eating.
When people start to become conscientious about how they're eating, it really opens
up the door to becoming more of an aware person in general. The decisions you make
are not just about satisfying your immediate needs, but it's about a bigger, global
picture, about satisfying the needs of what could possibly be a make-or-break situation
for the health and cleanliness of our Earth and making it a good place for the children
of the future.
For for more information, contact Bea James at (952) 915-2616, visit www.lundsmarket.com or www.byerlys.com. For more information on
organic standards, visit www.ams.usda.gov/nop
Tim Miejan is editor of Edge Life magazine. Contact him at (651) 578-8969, toll-free
1 (888) 776-5687 or e-mail editor@edgelife.net
Copyright © 2005 Tim Miejan. All rights reserved. |
| April 2005 |
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