Greetings and thanks for writing. As usual, suggestions and responses may have been edited for brevity, clarity and/or comedy. In addition, no idea, concept, issue, remark, phrase, description of event, word or word string should be taken seriously. This also applies to the previous sentence.

In October, I wrote about Beyond Meat’s mission of creating “mass-market solutions that perfectly replace animal protein with plant protein.” The word “mass” is interesting. Some Weavers Way staffers and I visited the new Whole Foods in Fairmount, which PhillyVoice termed “massive.” In November, we had a “mass” of people vote in a presidential election (when the mass of Electoral College votes outweighed the mass of popular votes). “Masses” of people attended football games as part of Thanksgiving tradition. In physics, as with people, mass has to do with population, although matter with more mass has more atoms, not more people. 

Back to “mass market.” Mass marketing is the opposite of niche marketing. Mass marketing targets the entire population, so maybe it’s more inclusive and democratic than niche marketing. Mass marketing also depends on mass media, which depends on modern communication technology like radio, TV, cable, internet and cellular networks. Since most modern communication technology also depends on electricity, and most electricity generation is still dependent on limited, finite energy sources like fossil fuels (and thus of questionable sustainability), I wonder what sustainable mass marketing would look like. Print media posted on telephone poles? Mail carriers delivering handwritten, typewritten and printed media like the old days of Life magazine? The town crier? Word of mouth? 

I’m leaning toward town crier, as a town crier program would create jobs that couldn’t be moved overseas. or even out of earshot. Since the job requires literacy, good diction, a developed vocabulary and awareness of current events, it should easily match up with the goals of our public schools. Hmm, good jobs, an informed populace, an educated workforce, community-based, using sustainable technology (vocal cords powered by calories from the local food system). Sounds pretty healthy. Why did we give this up? We didn’t recognize the value and let it slip away to mass-market communications. Good thing we always have our trusty cashiers to fulfill the town-crier role at Weavers Way.

Speaking of cashiers, Amazon is experimenting with no-checkout technology. “Amazon Go” uses lots of sensors, cameras, microphones and computing power to know exactly where shoppers are in the store, and if they used their hands to remove items from the shelf (or put items back on the shelf). It tracks bodies by sound and images, and hands by skin tone (which apparently is pretty unique). Of course, the process is associated with a phone app. (I think phones might as well be part of our bodies these days. At your next wellness checkup, the doc will also assess your phone’s battery strength, display clarity, processing power, useful apps and password strength.) 

Meanwhile, Amazon will know where you are and what you’re buying — for many people, this won’t be a change — and if I know the food industry, what will happen is Amazon will sell its ability to be so close to you to food manufacturers who will develop gimmicks to get you to choose their product over a competitor’s as they see what product you’re reaching for. Then someone will come out with an app allowing you to turn the tables and have the competing manufacturers bid for your potential purchase. 

In any event, I don’t think we should be so quick to lose the traditional cashier-checkout system. Sure, it can be slow and mistakes are made and sometimes cashiers try to sell you stuff (“Have you tried our Sriracha jellyfish slime soup?”) but I’ve also found that interacting with cashiers can be fun. For a few minutes, they are your captive audience. You can say anything you want, and they are pretty much required to listen and be politely responsive. If you ever flirted with the idea of doing standup comedy but were fearful of how an audience might react — your material, your timing, your chance of getting stage fright — cashiers are a great way to practice and find out. Really, Amazon Go does not stand a chance.

suggestions and responses:

s: “Please get Organic Girl spring mix in large containers. I like it better than Olivia’s, which lately goes bad faster and is sometimes very bitter.”

r: (Jean MA) We always order the 11 oz. Organic Girl spring mix, but excessive rain in California has damaged the baby salad crops. This may also explain why the Olivia’s goes bad quickly. Some growers are trying to harvest and dry their baby salads; many are not harvesting at all. As always, we will buy back any product. Thanks for shopping our Produce Department!

s: “The peanut butter grinders should have a sensor to stop if containers are going to overflow. I know this is impossible, just thought I’d share.”

r: Not impossible, but difficult and expensive. We would need sensors linked to a shut-off valve. Maybe a project for Amazon Go. FYI, humans have sensors too, two of which are vision and touch. There is another human sense, not usually mentioned as part of the five basic senses, which is timing. By combining your sense of sight and sense of timing, it should be possible for you to tell when the container is about to overflow, and touch the off button right before it overflows. It might take a little practice. You could try it on a cashier. On further thought, don’t.

s: “I can vouch for Organic Valley Eggnog, tastes great!”

r: Thanks for your feedback. Organic Valley is interesting; it’s a brand of a very large producers’ co-op (CROPP Cooperative), made up of about 1,800 family farms. CROPP produces about 40 percent of all the organic milk sold in the United States. They’ve gotten some criticism recently about becoming so large — increased administrative expenses, lower milk prices to member farmers, supplementing the milk supply with factory-farmed organic milk, the type of criticism that often comes when a mission-based organization grows so large that some people think the mission has been compromised to achieve scale. (Sound familiar?) By the way, an interesting thing about eggnog is that it was once a luxury item, since ingredients like eggs,milk and alcohol were available only to people of means. Guess we’re all rich in that sense.

s: “The paper bags used for bulk are very flimsy and break really easily at the register and in people’s shopping bags. Is there a sturdier option available?”

r: This is a new one. Anyone else having this problem? Meanwhile, there are other options, including double-bagging, using a plastic bag or bringing your own, which is the best choice.

s: “Why is bulk kombucha sold by the pound and not by volume?”

r: In general, it’s easier to sell bulk liquids by weight as it’s easy to determine the amount of a product via a scale. With shoppers bringing their own bottles and filling them to different levels, and with bottles being of various sizes and shapes (sometimes of unknown volume), it makes much more sense to sell liquids by weight than have cashiers try to figure out volume.

s: “Q Tonic is delicious, love it!”

r: Thanks, Q Tonic is good alternative to the more conventional brands of quinine water, which typically contain high-fructose corn syrup and sodium benzoate. Quinine is claimed to help with overall energy and blood flow.

s: “With all this fuss about Ambler, will there be any unique, local Ambler products?”

r: Yes. As types of water have increased — coconut water, maple water, alkaline water, oxygenated water, banana water, just to name a few we encounter in the grocery segment — we have come up with a water Ambler is well endowed to produce: asbestos water. Asbestos, a naturally occurring mineral once processed in Ambler, combined with the naturally occurring ground water running in pipes under Ambler, combine to make a local, mineralized water that offers the many health benefits of hydrating with suspended asbestos particles. With enough asbestos in your system, you can take advantage of its fireproofing properties, which can keep you safe from conflagrations like national politics. Look for it on our shelves as soon as we get EPA approval to mine asbestos Superfund sites, which will be much easier under the new administration.