SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. – January 22, 2013 – Food Marketing Institute (FMI) announced the recipient of the Herbert Hoover Award, CEO of Unified Grocers, Inc., Alfred Plamann. At this year’s FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, FMI acknowledged Plamann for his humanitarian business efforts by presenting him with this food retail industry honor.

FMI President and CEO Leslie G. Sarasin championed, “Al Plamann is legendary among wholesalers and his abiding commitment to serving independent retailers mirrors his altruistic regard for the individual.”

Plamann has a long leadership history with the company. Prior to his present position, which he has held since 2007, Plamann was president and CEO of Unified Western Grocers (1999-2007), president and CEO of Certified Grocers of California (1994-1999) and Chief Financial Officer, Certified Grocers of California. Unified Grocers operates in a culturally diverse marketplace, and Plamann continues to be a strong advocate for representing the evolving tastes and needs of the cooperative wholesaler’s members and customers.

Joe Sheridan, president and COO of Wakefern Food Corp., commented on Plamann’s honor, saying, “Every industry has its icons–Al is that icon in the supermarket industry. He is an innovator–laying the framework for the buying consortium to which Wakefern belongs; he is an unending source of wisdom and insight in an increasingly complex world; and he has set the bar high when it comes to the integrity and principles by which he conducts himself. Al has also created a member-driven culture at Unified that is a model for other cooperatives. He embodies the spirit of the Herbert Hoover Award and is well deserving of it.”

President of Unified Grocers, Bob Ling, has worked with Plamann for more than 16 years and shares the corporation’s passion for which Plamann is being recognized. In particular, Ling reflected on the philanthropic efforts of his colleague, noting, “Universally, he’s respected as an opinion leader and he’s been thoughtful throughout our history–everyone agrees that he’s a good man.”

Included in his community outreach programs are an internship program for high school graduating seniors that Plamann launched more than 15 years ago. The innovative program provides students with a paying job for the summer that not only is educational but also provides them with an insider’s look at the food industry. Ling noted that all of Unified’s associates look forward to the annual program because it provides a service to young people in a number of communities in which the company conducts business. Over time, the program has grown from Southern California-only to now include Northern California, Portland and Seattle.

Plamann is active with the Weingart Center Association, a non-profit organization that provides assistance to homeless people in the Los Angeles area. Plamann also is active in his support of the Boy Scouts, City of Hope and other community-based groups. Ling further commented on Plamann’s volunteerism, saying, “Al drives the company by leading by example and we emulate his approach; service to our members and the communities in which we conduct business is engrained in our company culture.”

Plamann’s advisory role extends to his tenure as a board member of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Town Hall of Los Angeles; a Board of Visitors member of the George L. Graziadio School of Business & Management — Pepperdine University; a member of the Southern California Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors; vice chairman of the Twelfth District Economic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve; vice chairman of the FMI Board of Directors and board member of the National Cooperative Grocers Association. Notably, in February of 2004, he was inducted into the California Grocers Association Hall of Achievement.

For Media
Hoover Award Background

(Editor’s Note: Jim Brulte addressed the CGA Board of Directors at its December Board meeting.)

Jim Brulte is making it official: The former Senate Republican leader said this afternoon that he is a candidate for chairman of the California Republican Party, a position he is widely expected to win.

Brulte told The Bee he will announce his candidacy tonight at a gathering of Republicans in San Diego.Following the announcement, Brulte will meet with a series of Republican groups throughout the state ahead of an election at the state party’s spring convention in March in Sacramento.

Brulte was recruited by influential Republicans following a disastrous November election for the GOP, and his interest in the position was widely reported. California Republicans hold no statewide offices, and Republican voter registration has fallen below 30 percent statewide.

If elected, Brulte said he will try to repair the party’s weak fundraising apparatus, recruit and help candidates and make voter registration gains.

“I want to be the nuts and bolts chairman,” he said.

Brulte was endorsed last week by Jon Fleischman on the conservative blog FlashReport.

Asked about the party’s platform – including positions on immigration and other controversial policy areas – Brulte suggested he is likely to avoid such fights, at least initially.

The platform is not up for a vote for three years, and Brulte said, “Ask me in the spring of 2016.”

Reprinted from The Sacramento Bee (1/14/2013)

Supervalu Inc. is selling five of its top supermarket chains — Albertsons, Acme, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s and Star Market — to an investor group owned by Cerberus Capital Management for $100 million in cash.

Cerberus’ AB Acquisition group will also acquire $3.2 billion in debt in taking over the 877 stores.

In addition, the investor group said it will try to take between a 19.9% and 30% stake in Supervalu. The tender offer of $4 a share represents a nearly 32% premium on Supervalu’s closing price Wednesday.

Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Supervalu will be left with its wholesaling business, 1,300 Save-A-Lot discount grocery stores and regional chains Cub, Farm Fresh, Shoppers, Shop ‘n Save and Hornbacher’s.

Quiz: How well do you remember 2012?

Supervalu stock was up as much as 19% Thursday, reaching $3.62 a share.

Sam Duncan, a longtime grocery industry veteran, will replace Wayne Sales as Supervalu’s president and chief executive once the acquisition closes. The Supervalu board will shrink from 10 members to seven once the deal goes through, with five current directors set to resign and a Cerberus-led investor consortium poised to choose two others.

After a longer search process, the board will expand to include 11 directors total.

Supervalu said it plans to “focus on right-sizing operations and maximizing efficiencies” going forward, generating annual revenues of more than $17 billion. The company said it has 125,000 employees.

In September, Supervalu said it would close 26 Albertsons stores by the end of 2012, including 18 in Southern California. Among all its chains, Supervalu said it would shut 60 stores nationwide.

New York-based private equity firm Cerebus said last month that it was selling Freedom Group, which produces the Bushmaster line of firearms. Adam Lanza is believed to have used one of the weapons in his assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Reprinted from The Los Angeles Times (1/10/2013)

After years of red ink, Gov. Jerry Brown said on Thursday that California’s $96.7-billion general fund is now poised to end next year with a surplus, thanks to years of deep budget cuts and billions in new taxes approved by voters last year.

“We achieved the position we’re in because of tough cuts … and then the people voted for taxes,” he said. “We broke the logjam by going to the people.”

READ THE SUMMARY: Gov. Brown’s proposed 2013-2014 budget »

Schools will be the big winner in the governor’s new spending plan, receiving $56.2 billion in state funds, an increase by $2.7 billion over the last year. That funding is set to jump to more than $66 billion by 2016.

The budget also dedicated an additional $350 million to the state’s public insurance program, Medi-Cal, to help implement President Obama’s healthcare law.

Brown’s budget predicts only the second budget surplus in the last decade, with an $851-million surplus projected at the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year — if all his proposals are approved by lawmakers.

With Democrats firmly in control of both legislative houses and the governor’s office, and without what had become familiar multibillion-dollar deficits, this year’s announcement lacked the anxiety and urgency that had surrounded past budget unveilings.

Instead of railing against proposed reductions in popular programs, activists are now girding for long policy battles based on the ideas put forward by the governor on Thursday.

Those fights will play out in the Legislature over the coming months. While they include sweeping changes in how Sacramento spends its money, those skirmishes, too, will lack the drama over cuts to schools and health services that have dominated Capitol discourse for the better part of the last decade.

Reprinted from The Los Angeles Times (1/10/2013)

What took you so long, FDA?

New food safety standards have been years in the making, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally released new regulations last week.

It hardly seems revolutionary to require farm workers who handle fruits and vegetables to wash their hands. Or to prohibit farm animals from going into fields where produce is grown. Or require processing equipment is clean.

Yet food safety requirements in this country were so far behind the times, it actually is a big change. The Food Safety Modernization Act, passed by Congress in 2010, was the first overhaul of the rules in more than 70 years.

To be sure, the new regulations won’t pose huge challenges for the best actors in food production — they’ve already adopted many of these practices of their own volition. But not all have. In recent years, the nation has grappled with a litany of tainted foods that have caused serious illness and death. Spinach, peanut butter, eggs and cantaloupe have all been implicated.

Unfortunately, it took two years for the Obama administration to write and release updated rules. And producers will have years to fully comply, particularly when it comes to small producers and water quality.

Nevertheless, it’s heartening to see a good set of standards, appropriately vetted, finally coming to fruition.

Reprinted from the Denver Post (1/9/2013)

By Russ Parsons

There’s a thought-provoking piece on Slate summarizing the comments of a longtime environmental activist who is now rethinking his opposition to genetically modified organisms. In a talk at the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday, Mark Lynas reportedly apologized for his previous position on the subject (I say “reportedly” because neither a video nor the official transcripts of the talk have been published yet, and the link Slate provides for a summary is broken). Here is what Slate quotes him as saying:

“I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

“As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

“So I guess you’ll be wondering—what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.”

Furthermore, he says, “To vilify GMOs is to be as anti-science as climate-change deniers.”

It does seem to me that most opposition to GMOs has been based on criticisms of how the technology has been used in some cases and of the corporations that have been using them (one in particular, of course, Monsanto).

Without apologizing for those companies’ actions, and while acknowledging that so far some uses such as Roundup-Ready seeds seem to have significant shortcomings, I still wonder whether we are in danger of throwing out the baby with the bath water by condemning all uses of GMOs. What about the much-less heralded success in reviving the Hawaiian papaya crop (scroll to near the end), which had been threatened with annihilation by an imported pest, until a genetically modified alternative was introduced?

This is something I’ve been pondering for a while. Well, ever since I moderated a panel at the Monterey Bay Aquarium that featured the most fascinating couple, Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak (she’s quoted near the end of this film clip). He is a longtime organic farmer and runs the student farm and CSA at UC Davis; she is a leading GMO researcher. The book they wrote together, “Tomorrow’s Table,” should be read by anyone who is interested in the future of agriculture.

If those two can find a middle ground (much less stay married), might there be room for a more nuanced view of the question?

Reprinted from The Los Angeles Times (1/6/2013)