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Navigating the "Maize": Simplifying the Modern Supermarket

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Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash 31,704       Thirty-one thousand, seven hundred and four. That was the average amount of “stock keeping units” – SKUs for short – being sold in U.S. supermarkets in 2023 (Source: FMI ) . With so many options, one would think we have a veritable cornucopia of nutrition available to us. However, there is a lot less variety in our modern markets than we might think. Hiding in plain sight, on so many of the food labels, is a single ingredient – corn. Corn, the Colonizer Crop      For more than 1,000 years Zea Mays, or “corn” as it is popularly known, has been feeding humans. According to author Michael Pollan , this once wild grass “is the hero of its own story, and though we humans played a crucial supporting role in its rise to world domination, it would be wrong to suggest we have been calling the shots…Indeed, there is every reason to believe that corn has succeeded in domesticating us” (Pollan 23). That is a...
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Creating Culture for our Kids

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    “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned  so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”   Joseph Campbell          I thought I would be a pastor at this point in my life. At least, I hoped I would. That was a dream I had held onto since I was 15 years old. I was one of those kids who was willingly choosing to follow in my father's footsteps. My dad never put any pressure on me to pursue that line of work, but I was around it all the time as I grew up. You could say it was a part of my culture.        Speaking of culture, I have a few thoughts. The older I get, the more it seems I become aware of the cultural lineage from which I - and all humans really - have descended. We are both the beneficiaries and the victims of our cultural heritage. The environments in which we grow up can literally turn off some genes or turn on others (look up  epigenetics  sometime). How amazing - and sobering if you'...
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5 Strategies for Driving Supply Chain Sustainability

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  As a Purchasing Agent,  I am in a unique position to drive change. Here are some ideas I have been developing to help reduce my company's ecological impact. They also have the potential to increase our profit margin, so it's a win-win scenario (bonus!).   1. Optimize Inbound Shipping - When ordering multiple items from the same manufacturer or distributor, I can request they all be sent in the same shipment (better planning and scheduling helps with this too). This will not only reduce freight costs, it will also reduce the amount of fuel needed to transport the goods I order, thus reducing carbon emissions.   2. Request Eco-friendly packaging from vendors - This one could add a bit of cost initially, but more and more options are available now, so those costs should go down over time   3. Purchase Eco-friendly packaging for our shipping department - See above   4. Evaluate the sustainable practices of potential and current vendors - I often face a time c...
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