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1. reuben miller - October 10, 2007

Hi there,

I thought you may be interested in this recent article I wrote.

It’s titled “Now Veggies are as Cool as Cheetos” [Can we get our kids to eat healthier food, be environmentally friendly, while at the same time still be the 'cool'?]

Link: http://reubenmiller.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/now-veggies-are.html

For your convenience I have copied the article below.

All the best
Reuben Miller
http://www.reubenmiller.typepad.com
info@reubenmiller.com

The Stanford University study had kids taste food in McDonald packaging and unmarked packaging and asked which they preferred. The kids preferred the McDonald packaged food not realizing that they went for it because they were conditioned to believe “it must taste good.”

You can be negative about the effects of advertising and packaging, but I think if you apply the lesson learned from the study noted above, you’ll find that you can use this information positively.

After being inspired by the Stanford University study on McDonald’s packaging effect on kids, I came up with an idea to get kids to eat their veggies as enthusiastically as ’snack’. If zip-seal bags would be pre-printed with cool graphics like those on national brand snack packaging (which kids love), then they might be more inclined to take, display and eat their healthy snacks in school with zest.

Well, Mobi has already created this product! They make a great array of appealing sandwich bags, pre-printed with various designs that can even give cut-up celery sticks a zap of show-off cool factor.

Mobi’s bags would be perfect for influencing kids to see healthy snacks as the ‘cool thing’.

As an added bonus, these bags are environmentally friendly. The materials used to make them are recycled and recyclable. Furthermore in 2008 the company plans to use strictly biodegradable films in their products.

In addition to the environment, they are also passionate about helping endangered species and global aid.

2. Jared Grove - November 29, 2007

Hi Cindy,

I noticed that you share our passion for sustainable living so I thought that you might be interested in learning about our new website, OrganicStyle.com. We are an eco-lifestyle boutique that is transforming the way that companies do business on the Internet.

We would love to share our story with you and your readers!—from launching the world’s first organic flower company to our extensive work with charitable organizations (over $250k in donations to-date!) to supporting small farmers & artisans in their efforts to rebuild their communities—we’re dedicated to making a difference in this world through collaboration with eco-minded people like you.

If you’d like to learn more about us, please feel free to contact me or visit us at http://www.OrganicStyle.com.

Many thanks,

Jared Grove
jared@organicstyle.com

3. bruce wheeler - October 31, 2008

Quite a few months ago you had a rather heated discussion with Rafael Puga from Salmon of the Americas. The conversation, and Sr.Puga’s attitude expressed perfectly the attitude of Chilean salmon producers and their total distain for anything that interferes with their making more money, attaches is some more up to date information on the salmon industry in Chile and Mr. Puga. It is a shame to see such a beautiful country being destroyed by an industry that markets itself as a healthy, environmentally friendly food supplier. Bruce Wheeler Rio Carhuello Intrafish, 29th October 2008

SOTA, former exec square off in court

Photo: SOTA President Rafael Puga denies Alex Trent was wrongfully dismissed as
executive director of Salmon of the Americas (SOTA).

Read also
- Six months in, SOTA executive director leaves
- Trent leaving SOTA; replacement named

Ben DiPietro

A May trial date is set in federal court in Florida for the wrongful
termination lawsuit filed by former Salmon of the Americas (SOTA)
Executive Director Alex Trent against the trade group.

Before the May 25 scheduled trial in U.S. District Court in Miami takes
place, the parties have set a date with a mediator. U.S. District Judge
Donald Graham earlier this month said the two sides wil meet Jan. 20 in
Miami with Judge Herbert Stettin, who will serve as the mediator, court
filings show.
In an amended complaint filed in August, Trent claims he was fired as the
group’s executive director following his having internally criticized
high-volume Chilean production methods as illegal, unsafe for consumers
and environmentally unsound, and had objected to the organization
president’s secret interception of his e-mails.
The lawsuit alleges some SOTA executives and their employees interfered to
undermine his relationship with the group, and claims violations of
federal and state wiretapping laws.

Along with SOTA, other defendants named in the lawsuit are Rafael Puga of
Marine Harvest, who is president of SOTA, and Gaston Dupre of AquaChile,
SOTA treasurer, according to the filing in Miami at U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of Florida. AquaChile and Marine Harvest USA
also are named, but have filed motions seeking to dismiss the claims
against them.

The rest of the defendants denied the allegations in August in a court
filing.
Trent claims work performed for SOTA at his consulting company, Market
Action, began to monopolize his time, so much so he was asked by SOTA to
stop working on a contract basis and become the group’s executive
director.
When SOTA told Trent he had to choose between running his company or being
executive director, the lawsuit claims Trent resigned as executive
director, only to be convinced by Puga to stay on.
The lawsuit alleges Trent agreed to a temporary pay cut, during which time
he says Puga promised him he would get board approval for a new contract
that would restore payments to the original amount he was being paid,
$25,000 (€19,664) a month, from the $12,000 (€9,439) a month he agreed to
accept on a temporary basis.
When, after nine months, no contract was offered, Trent told Puga during a
visit with wild salmon producers in Alaska in January 2006 about his
concerns about Chilean producers’ use of FDA-prohibited antibiotics and
other practices raising serious health and environmental concerns.
He claims he was told by Puga some Chilean producers thought of Trent as
an NGO sympathizer on the environmental and food-safety issues. He alleges
Puga told him the health and environmental issues Trent raised were “none
of your business,” and there would be no new contract and, if Trent
continued to ask for one, he would be fired.
Trent complained to SOTA a consultant firm it hired to critique Trent’s
performance, APCO Worldwide, used its access to the Web site to route
copies of e-mails addressed to Trent — at addresses at which NGO contacts
and other SOTA members communicated with Trent — to the personal e-mail
accounts of Puga at his office in the Miami headquarters of Marine
Harvest.
Trent on Nov. 2, 2006 wrote to Puga as president, Vincent Erenst, another
Marine Harvest employee who served as SOTA vice president, and Dupre as
treasurer, and to all three as members of the executive committee of SOTA
to complain “[i]n addition to being morally reprehensible, this
interception is a breach of the law as outlined under several federal and
state statutes, including the Federal Wiretap law.”
The lawsuit alleges following a board meeting approximately a week after
the letter — during which board meeting Trent was publicly praised for
his handling of a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission concerning an
advertisement extolling the values of farm-raised salmon as part of a
pregnant woman’s diet — Puga and Dupre approached Trent, called him a
“troublemaker” and told him he was being terminated as executive director.

Puga, in Dupre’s presence, told Trent he should continue as a consultant
doing most of the same work that he had been doing as executive director,
agreed verbally to pay Trent his standard $200 (€157)-an-hour fee and told
Trent to send him a contract embodying those terms, court documents claim.

After Trent sent Puga the contract, however, Dupre, not Puga, contacted
Trent to say the contract was not acceptable and SOTA would only pay Trent
$40,000 (€31,456), would require Trent to waive any claims against SOTA
and would prohibit Trent from telling anyone anything negative about any
of SOTA’s members, suppliers or customers.
Trent declined the offer, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit is seeking Trent’s reinstatement to the same position he held
as executive director, or to an equivalent position; reinstatement of full
fringe benefits and seniority rights; compensation for all lost wages,
benefits and other remuneration; punitive damages; payment of a civil fine
of $10,000 (€7,864) to the State Treasurer of New Jersey; and payment by
SOTA, Puga and Dupre of reasonable costs, and attorney’s fees.
The lawsuit doesn’t put a dollar amount on the claims, other than to say
they total more than $75,000 (€59,000).
Print

Copyright 2005 IntraFish Media AS - All rights reserved.
http://www.intrafish.no/global/news/article231343.ece

Seafood Business, 29th October 2008

4. Nick Pray - July 9, 2009

I’m working on a film called Food Inc. It was just released theatrically across the US. This documentary focuses on the industrial food system in America. One of the characters It features is Barbara Kowalcyk, a mother who lost her son to E. coli after all eating together at a fast food restaurant during a family vacation. Her story, along with the testimony of experts like Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) brings to light the importance of not only know what our children are eating, but where it came from, how safe it is, and how our current industrial food system has hidden the real costs of our food chain from us.

I would urge every concerned parent to see this film. It’s not about fat or thin, it’s about an entire generation of children, born after the year 2000, in which one out of every three will have early onset diabetes. It’s about feeling secure in what your children are eating, and about educating them to make good choices themselves.

The more educated we are as parents/grandparents/aunts and uncles/educators, the better off we are to give our children the knowledge and the ammunition to make better choices and lead healthier lives. ou can find when/where Food Inc will open near you at: http://www.magpictures.com/dates.aspx?id=3e3938d1-b785-4286-9ae0-8eb5952f1480

Find out more and watch the trailer at: http://www.foodincmovie.com//