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New Website Community Pages
Have you checked out our new “Community” pages on the Frontier wholesale website?
We’ve tried to make the site more informative and easier to use, most notably by grouping
co-op and your individual member info under an easy-to-navigate Community section.
Read about Frontier’s co-op values and activities, get answers about membership issues
in the FAQs, find out what products are hottest and which are on sale, watch our latest
videos, view your financial info, update your email addresses, and opt-in for online voting.
More changes are coming based on your comments in the recent Member Survey, but
we think you’ll find the Community section is getting us off to a good start and making
the wholesale site more convenient and enjoyable.
Organic Answers Worth Repeating
Nine Q&As from NewHope360 called Why go organic? Answers to consumers’ top
questions offer solid answers to nine common questions you’re likely to here from customers.
The topics range from the general (“Is avoiding pesticides on fruits and vegetables worth the
extra cost?”) to the detailed (“What’s the difference between 100% organic and made with
organic ingredients?”) Here’s New Hope’s Q&A on irradiation, for example:
What is irradiation? [note this is part of the “Organic Answers” article]
What do dental instruments and raw meat have in common? Both may have undergone
irradiation—a process during which they’re subjected to “ionizing radiation” to destroy
harmful bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella.
Although USDA Organic regulations prohibit this safety measure, irradiation has been
approved for almost all conventional foods including meats, produce, flours, herbs, and
spices. Critics say that while it doesn’t make foods radioactive, irradiation could have other
hidden consequences, such as nutrient loss; damage to natural enzymes; and the formation
of free radicals and potentially toxic compounds called unique radiolytic products (URPs), including benzene, formaldehyde, and lipid
peroxides. Some URPs are also known carcinogens. Although products that have been irradiated must be labeled as such, you can’t be
sure that packaged goods are free of minor irradiated ingredients—unless they are organic.
Sustainability Snapshot
This month’s snapshot from our latest Sustainability Report is about waste. It’s from
the Operations section of our 2011 Sustainability Report.
Our resource use and waste objective is to achieve zero waste sent to the landfill and
to maximize the efficient use of materials.
In the past five years—the span of time for which we’ve measured and tracked our
recycling—we have recycled 1,630 tons of waste. That’s equal to about 163 full garbage
trucks.
In 2011, however, we saw a 13% increase in the waste we sent to the landfill. At
the same time, we increased the tons of waste recycled by 13%—and we recycled a
large amount of material that we were not able to weigh and count in our totals (such
as construction waste sent to a Habitat for Humanity Store and pallets, drums, and
cardboard boxes that we reuse).
Our goal for this year is to reduce waste sent to the landfill from 32% to 25%. To do this, we are providing employees with better
information and better training about recycling, and we’re establishing a strong recycling program and waste management program at our
North Liberty facility. New outlets for several waste commodities that were previously being landfilled will have a small but measureable
impact. And our composting efforts (continuing to bin compost food scraps from our café, composting the contents of our manufacturing
dust-collection system, for example) will also help us meet our goal for this year.
To see a chart of our major categories of recycled waste over the last five years, see the Operations page of our Sustainability Report at:
www.frontiercoop.com/sustainabilityreport.
Order by phone 1-800-669-3275 M-F 7am-6pm CST or by fax 1-800-717-4372