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Conference 2007 Thursday, October 4 Workshops Thursday Keynote Event Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, is described by popular author and former NIH scientist Candace Pert as “the leading world expert in the understanding and communication of the health issues surrounding genetically modified foods.” Mr. Smith’s globally respected research and magnetic communication style captured public attention in 2003 with his first book Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating. Mr. Smith’s recently released new book, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods, presents 65 health dangers of the GM foods Americans eat every day. Workshops: Session I Identifying GMO Contamination in Our Food Finally! A program to ensure that the products on your shelves are free from GMO contaminants. Michael Funk and Jeffery Smith will guide you through the framework of the Non-GMO Project, whose mission is to develop and uphold a standardized definition of “Non-GMO”. They will discuss the details of the program, the verification process, and what you can do to join the effort. Don’t miss this great opportunity! This session is recommended for retailers, manufacturers and anyone concerned with GMO contamination of their food. It Shouldn't Hurt to Change We all want to do it—grow our business that is, but how can we facilitate this process to make it [relatively] painless? Three panel members [retail, distributor and manufacturer] discuss what challenges they faced, what they wish they had done differently and what they wouldn’t change when planning for an expansion or relocation project, or when simply trying to make room for all those new employees and/or customers. Topics include sourcing financing, preparing for and instituting organizational change and how to hold your staffs' hands through thick and thin. Building a Magnetic Brand That Attracts the Right Customers With mainstream companies jumping onto the natural and organic bandwagon, the marketplace is more competitive than ever. Learn how to find your market niche, defend your position, and leverage your brand essence to attract the consumers that will help you remain competitive. In this interactive session, you’ll begin developing a plan to ignite the spark within your company and rev up your marketing engine to grow your business. Demos With Integrity: What a Demo Program Can Do for Your Business and What You Can Do for Your Demo Program Whether your natural foods business is small or large scale, it can benefit from a demo program. This interactive workshop addresses the creation, purpose, care, feeding and justification of a demo program. Why demo at all? Is a demo program possible on a small budget? Who should do demos? What goes into an effective demo? What is the role of the demonstrator in your business? How do know your program is working? Bring your own questions and experiences to share. Your Broker and You Join this panel of industry experts to discuss how best to work with your broker representative. Toss around ideas and get feedback on what brokers do and how they do it. Learn what resources and services your broker can provide, and what they consider a successful store relationship. Discuss how an effective broker partnership can build business and best serve your customers. Personalized Customer Service for the Small Retailer How can the small retail store use customer service to compete with the big stores? In a new era of competition with all the big box stores selling organics, we need to find ways to compete with the lower prices and the one stop shop they can offer. At the Santa Rosa Community Market we strive to have the best service in California. We will be discussing how to set up and use customer service systems to not only serve your customers on the floor and deal with complaints and suggestions, but to get to know them on a deeper level and learn how you should spend their money to serve them even better. You can get valuable information from your customers if you really take the time to get to know them and make them feel happy to spend their money in your store. A customer that gets good service will come back but a customer that gets good service and feels like they have real friends in your store will be happy to tell you their honest opinion, positive or negative. Don’t you want to know? Lets all help each other open up the lines of communication with your customers through great service. Workshops: Session II Growing the Grassroots: How Working with Sustainable Food Activists Can Help Our Businesses and Change Our World Want to change the world? You can through grassroots action and pressure on politicians and corporations. This presentation by three seasoned activists will provide a comprehensive overview of the many avenues that concerned citizens can utilize to create change. This includes working through the political process to change the laws on a local, state and national level and putting pressure on corporations to “clean up their act” and change their policies. You will learn why the saying “Think Globally and Act Locally” is as true now as it was back in the 1970s. Further, you will find out why the old adage that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is really true and learn how you can become an effective “squeaky wheel.” Moreover, you will discover why the internet is an activist’s dream come true and how we can use this amazing tool to create rapid global change. Playing By the Rules Personnel policies clarify expectations, answer employee questions, guide supervisors in making decisions, provide uniformity throughout departments and help protect the coop from lawsuits. But if poorly designed or not consistently followed, your personnel policy manual could become a liability, not an asset. In this workshop, we’ll discuss legal issues with creating and implementing personnel policies, with suggestions on writing style, employee involvement and avoiding unintended consequences. Throughout the workshop we will call on real-life experiences of participants. This session is primarily for general managers and human resources staff, or any staff with responsibility for developing and/or implementing personnel policies. Reinventing Regional Food Systems Organic has become the premier marketplace-based success story of sustainable agriculture — now is the time for the organic movement to take stock and look at how we can best position ourselves for the future. Michael Sligh, founding chair of the National Organic Standards Board and Just Foods Director for Rural Advancement Foundation International, will discuss new opportunities and challenges for the future of organic agriculture in the United States. Topics will include the National Organic Action Plan and social justice labeling initiatives, including the Agricultural Justice Project. Growing Your Own Distributor None of us are comfortable with only one distributor to choose from [and you know who they are!]. But how can we work together to grow the number of distributors and increase the options? What can we do to help grow the current playing field? Or is there a new paradigm that we could be promoting? Join three distributors as they talk about what retailers, manufacturers and distributors need to know, and do, to increase or simply change the options. Clowns, Magicians and Manufacturers Have Deep Pockets. Which One of These Doesn't Belong? Our panelists will tell their stories of costs involved in manufacturing a variety of products. Each manufacturer faces challenges with sustainability issues, manufacturing and distribution costs and government regulations. What other costs are involved in product manufacturing that are not obvious unless you are in the same business? Surprising and educational. It Can Be the Little Things: 12 Great Ideas for Informing and Educating Customers Here are 12 fresh ideas that don’t cost much money or time and will spiff up your customer outreach! As they say, it’s the little things that can make a big difference in how we feel about our shopping experience, maybe teach us a new trick, or take us closer to the source of our food. The purpose of this workshop is to look at some creative ways to provide product information that educates and informs without intruding. Here are a couple of the ideas we’ll cover: “Wave of the Future:” Keeping Kids in Mind, Promoting Simple Meal Suggestions that Are Ready in 10 Minutes or Less, Simple Signage to Spotlight Local Value- Added Products, and Special Topic Demos and Tours. Plan to have a good time and leave with some new inspirations! Sweeteners Beyond Sugar - 101 It’s the sweet scoop on organic, natural, unrefined and conventionally refined sweeteners. From liquids to granulated sweeteners, traditional sweeteners to innovative new approaches, we’re letting it all out of the bag—or bottle as the case may be. We’ll taste, compare and explore their sweet and savory aspects, dabble in a little kitchen science, count calories, wander a bit through sweeteners' varied geographies, see how they’re made and what they’re made from, look back on their histories (which aren’t necessarily so sweet) and look forward to their futures (which really are getting sweeter every day). Conference main page
Provender Alliance
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