-By Kristin V. Montalvo

Portland Company Celebrates its 30th Anniversary
Portland, Ore.-based Elephants Delicatessen has also been leading the way in the Pacific Northwest to establish a commitment to the environment in all aspects of this 30-year-old food and catering business. The company's latest "green" practices include adopting a new box lunch container for all their catering and take-out uses that is 100 percent biodegradable made from renewable, sustainable resources such as corn, potatoes and 100 percent recyclable fiber board. Additionally, the company has committed to using 100 percent new wind power from Northwest wind farms from Portland General Electric for all their electricity needs. These are some of the positive steps that helped Elephants Delicatessen receive the BlueWorks award from the Office of Sustainable Development in November 2006 — one of only four food businesses in the city to be recognized.

Green Gourmet
As a leader in the gourmet food industry, Elephants Delicatessen has always been proactive about adopting positive workplace policies for the environment — from subsidized bus passes to a companywide composting program.

"I have made our commitment to the environment a top priority," said Ann Weaver, CEO of Elephants Delicatessen. "We have always incorporated practices that are positive for the environment, but in the past few years, our vision has grown, and we are looking at every corner of our company and asking how we can make positive changes with little impact on the earth."

Elephants Delicatessen provides gourmet foods made from scratch for all occasions —from dining in or quick purchase to take back to the office. A wide assortment of homemade food is available daily from tomato orange soup to 20 varieties of freshly baked breads such as Pane Pugliese and Pan Alle Olive to Walnut Whole Wheat. All three locations offer warm breakfast sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, signature salads, soups and sandwiches. The flagship location in NW Portland also features an in-house cheesemonger and a high-quality assortment of European, domestic and farmhouse cheeses. There is also an olive bar and charcuterie station, as well as grill service for panini sandwiches, pizza, and full dinner entrees from chicken enchiladas to lasagna and macaroni-and-cheese. Elephants also caters to gluten-free customers with a homemade spelt bread as well as a wide selection of salads.

Elephants has built a reputation for creating unique gift baskets available year-round for local delivery or pick-up. Wine steward Larry Halkinrude oversees more than 180 bottles of wine from around the world available for retail purchase at the NW Portland location with more than 25 percent from Oregon and Washington, specializing in small, family-run vineyards. A selection of microbrew and international beers is also available at all locations.

Snapshot:
Elephants Delicatessen, 115 NW 22nd Avenue, Portland
Flying Elephants at Fox Tower, 812 SW Park Avenue, Portland
Flying Elephants at Kruse Woods, 5885 SW Meadows Road, Lake Oswego
Web Site: www.elephantsdeli.com
Founder: Elaine Tanzer
Management: Anne Weaver, CEO, Scott Weaver, Executive Chef
Date Opened: 1978

Editor's Note: For more on Elephants' environmental efforts, please see our Green Behind The Scenes feature.

News in Brief
E-commerce veterans from eBay and StudentAdvantage.com have launched Evo.com, an aggregator site for 1,200 e-retailers selling about 100,000 "green" products and services ranging from organic apparel and electric scooters to solar panels. Evo, which provides links to e-commerce sites including "green" apparel and home furnishings retailer VivaTerra.com as well as traditional merchants like Macys.com, HomeDepot.com and ToysRUs.com, is targeting what Evo co-founder and CEO Dan Siegel says is a burgeoning market of consumers interested in purchasing environmentally friendly products and services. "This green marketplace has a lot of interest among consumers, but many of the products and services on the business side are just coming to market," Siegel says, adding that many traditional merchants are beginning to offer "green" products and are looking for a dedicated site like Evo to sell them.

In a first step that may soon spread companywide, Whole Foods Market has announced that it will no longer offer plastic grocery bags at the checkouts in its two stores in Austin, Texas, its headquarters town, reported Progressive Grocer. Eliminating plastic grocery bags in Austin will be a test for the company, and serves as the first step to ban such bags companywide. Paper bags made exclusively for Whole Foods Market from 100 percent recycled content will continue to be an option for shoppers. To further bolster the reusable bag program the company has had in place for years, Whole Foods is now selling "A Better Bag," a reusable bag with a colorful and whimsical design made from 80 percent post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. It sells for 99 cents at checkout areas in all Whole Foods stores nationwide. The company also announced its two Austin stores will increase the refund from five cents to 10 cents per bag to shoppers who bring their own bags to use at the checkouts.

Sunflower Farmers Markets, an organic and natural supermarket chain, has announced plans to grow its store base in Utah and Colorado this year.The retailer has executed its first four leases of 2008 for stores in Utah as well as its home state of Colorado. Sunflower's two new Utah stores will be located in Murray and Orem. Additionally, Sunflower has signed two leases in Littleton and Aurora, Colo. Sunflower markets was started by Mike Gilliland, founder of Wild Oats, and bills itself as a low-price alternative to its predecessor, which was acquired by Whole Foods in August.

Supermarket chain Safeway won praise in January for converting its entire truck fleet to cleaner-burning biodiesel fuel, reported an article on cbs4denver.com. The fuel, B20, is a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel. Safeway says they want to find new ways to protect the environment and reduce pollution, and they hope other major retailers will follow their lead. The environmentally friendly fuel costs a little more, but the company believes it's the right thing to do. Safeway claims converting its fleet will do away with 75 million tons of carbon emissions — the same as taking 7,400 cars off the road.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. opened the first of its four second-generation high-efficiency stores (known as "HE.2") in January, which use 25 percent less energy than the baseline Wal-Mart Supercenter, in Romeoville, Ill. The location melds what the megaretailer has learned from its successful first-generation high-efficiency stores (HE.1) with new cutting-edge technologies. As well as saving energy, the new stores will considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions by lowering refrigerant by 90 percent, according to Wal-Mart. The HE.2 series will include several new technological advances, including white roofs, low-flow bathroom faucets, LED lights and an advanced daylight harvesting system.

NYC Council Passes Bill Requiring Stores to Recycle Plastic Bags
If you're one of the many New Yorkers who worry about throwing away plastic bags but seem only to acquire more and more, then help is on the way, reports The New York Times.

In January, the City Council overwhelmingly passed a bill requiring large stores and retail chains to collect and recycle the plastic bags they give to shoppers. New York is by far the largest American city to enact so broad a measure to limit the environmental impact of the bags. Altogether, each year the country is estimated to use 86 billion bags, which end up blowing down city streets, or tangled in the stomachs of whales and sea turtles, or buried in landfills where, environmental organizations say, they persist for as long as 1,000 years.

Plastic bags are a source of environmental anxiety for New Yorkers, who use one billion a year, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn said in an interview after the vote. City dwellers consider recycling "more and more" important, she explained, but until now have not had a ready means of recycling the bags.

But under the new bill, which had a surprising amount of support from retailers and plastic-bag manufacturers, stores that give the bags to customers must provide recycling bins for the bags in a prominent place in the store. The legislation applies to stores of 5,000 square feet or larger, as well as all branches of chains with more than five locations in the city.

The Department of Sanitation, which picks up plastic bottles, cans and newspapers, will not collect the bags. Stores will have to contract to have them removed, most likely by companies that will recycle them into new plastic bags or buy them to make into other products. Stores will also have to ensure that the bags they distribute have printed messages urging customers to return them to stores.

The Food Industry Alliance, which represents 750 supermarkets in the city, backed the bill after pushing through some changes.

"We already have a lot of members who have taken up this cause," said Patricia Brodhagen, vice president of public affairs for the Alliance. ShopRite, Stop & Shop, Food Emporium and others already collect bags voluntarily. Whole Foods, which is not a member, promotes reusable bags and offers small discounts for returned bags.

Comments? kmontalvo@gourmetretailer.com