America's taste for organic food on the rise

“There appears to be a generational difference in preference for organic foods. The strong positive sentiment among young people indicated they are more concerned with exposure to toxins and place a higher premium on supporting local markets. It stands to reason that, by expanding the network of farmer’s markets, we could see a furthermore groundswell around the support for organic foods.”

Interesting dilemma in the restaurant industry

That makes for an interesting dilemma in the restaurant industry, which has been making lots of noise lately about organic sourcing and more nutritious menu choices. Just this week, for instance, McDonald’s announced it would automatically include produce or a low-fat dairy option in every Happy Meal that it sells starting in September 2011. What’s more, it plans to include apples in every Happy Meal by the end of the first quarter of 2012. McDonald’s announcement comes on the heels of the launch of the voluntary Kids LiveWell Campaign by 19 national restaurant chains. Among other things, there is a much bigger push on the use of produce in their menus, which could translate into increased revenue for local farmers.

The healthy eating advocacy campaigns spreading across the United States aren’t specifically the same as the organic movement, clearly. Nevertheless I do feel that the two are related, and both trends should be of acute interested to any businesses involved with food, including grocery stores, restaurants and giant food companies that are evaluating the long-term sustainability of certain ingredients choices.

Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green innovation and corporate sustainability issues. Her articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. In a past corporate life, Heather was editor of Computer Reseller News, where she was a featured speaker about everything from software as a service to IT security to mobile computing.

Heather started her journalism life as a business writer with United Press International in New York. She holds a B.A. in English literature from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and has a thing for Lewis Carroll. When she's not hunting for a great green story, she's singing a cappella or scuba-diving with her husband, Joe.

My daily writing is focused on looking for topics for my blogs, GreenTech Pastures and Business Brains. I as well write often about emerging research trends just as mobile computing, unified communications and cloud computing. Occasionally, I will pop up at an industry conference in some sort of speaking capacity. In cases where a speaking engagement involves a sponsor that may be covered in this blog, that fact will be disclosed in coverage as the case may be.

My corporate writing work as a general rule consists of crafting technology white papers about some aspect of innovation. When all is said and done that my commentary mentions a company for which I have provided consulting advice, I will disclose that fact. Nevertheless, there is no connection between these projects and the topics that I'm covering in my blog.