Lost in the Supermarket

The Future of Food is Now. The Bayer Marana, AZ site is a smart greenhouse facility aimed at driving tailored solutions for the future of agriculture. This site focuses on seed production and agricultural innovation, leveraging the latest in automation to optimize plant density and workflow. Join us as Megan Dickens provides a short virtual tour and dives into sustainability practices and how research taking place now shapes the future of agriculture.

Have you ever thought about how plant breeding can help mitigate food waste, improve sustainability, and improve flavor? These are a few things plant breeders think about when creating new varieties of some of your favorite produce. Bayer's High Rise™ Broccoli series has been 20 years in the making.  Developed in collaboration with growers, the High Rise broccoli series offers supply chain-wide benefits from field to store to table.

Today we talk digital commerce. It’s the focus of every grocery retailer – from one store operations to the largest chains with thousands of stores. Here’ to give us an update and a look into the future is Barry Clogan, Chief Product Officer at Wynshop / Mi9 Retail a retail veteran with 20+ years of experience working internationally in retail, grocery, and extensively in e-commerce. In his previous role as President at MyWebGrocer, Barry helped the world’s largest grocers launch online grocery services and execute their multichannel strategies. Before joining MyWebGrocer, Barry spent five years at Tesco, where he led the rollout of the world’s largest online grocery business across eight international markets.

Technology, technology technology. It's all that the grocery industry is thinking about. How to increase efficiencies better than the shopper experience and create bigger basket size today. My guest is Spencer Price co-founder and CEO of Halla. Halla is the taste intelligence company and creator of the only human preference engine that's designed for grocery. Its tastes intelligence uses AI to redefine personalization and to predict what individual shoppers will actually want to buy next in real time.

The growing belief among consumers that nutritious foods are only those made with minimal, easy-to-pronounce ingredients presents a new challenge and educational opportunity for retail professionals: demonstrate that all of our food is chemically composed and ingredients like monosodium glutamate (MSG) – unfamiliar as they may sound – can be safe and offer real health and flavor benefits. This episode takes a deep dive into MSG's history, science, and benefits (like sodium reduction) as a way to equip retail professionals with the facts and support educated food decisions.

References

• MSG Safety, Facts and Science (KnowMSG.com)
• MSG and Sodium Reduction: Research and Resources (KnowMSG.com)
• Guidance for Industry: Voluntary Sodium Reduction Goals (FDA)

My guest today is Matt Schwartz , the CEO and co-founder of Afresh, an AI technology company, that builds solutions specifically for the complexity of fresh food to radically reduce food waste. One of our nation's biggest problems and multiply groceries profitability, and make fresh nutrient dense food accessible for everyone. He started Afresh, because his deep experience working in food led them to believe that improving the food system is our single best path to improving human and environmental health.

My guest today is Kevin Brown CEO and the co-founder of Innit. Now, Kevin has more than 20 years experience in food tech, search security and cloud sectors, and wants to announce a new partnership that they have. That's really going to change the way we think about grocery shopping. There's no question that during the pandemic we've had a lot of retailers invest in a lot of technology. And to be honest with you, the reality is that some of the retailers have thrown away a lot of money because they just haven't really looked at what that customer experience is all about.

Brad Charron is CEO of Aloha, an employee-owned and operated company committed to making the healthiest, best-tasting plant-based protein products on the planet. A classically trained CPG operator, Brad has worked on powerful entrepreneurial brands including Chobani, Under Armour and KIND Snacks.

Today with me is Kimberly Griffith, a Clinical Research Partner for Thryve.  She is also a microbiome researcher and Functional Medicine nutritionist that uses science-based, individualized approaches to promote optimal wellness for each individual. Her persistent focus within lifestyle medicine application and research is firmly founded within the microbial community, understanding health effects from gut, skin, oral and vaginal dysbiosis and how best to optimize each biome for ideal health and wellness. Kimberly is a board Certified Nutrition Specialist and holds a Masters of Science in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, alongside continual education within microbiome research.

One of my favorite topics to discuss on Lost in the Supermarket is innovation in our food world and to interview those insightful game changers. On today's episode, we have Keith Belling, CEO and Co-Founder of Right Rice. Keith is one of those innovators who look just a little bit differently at our foods which opens up a whole new way of looking at our grocery stores.