James5

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An interesting article linked from triplepundit raises the interesting issue of what happens when organic, green and ethical business goes mainstream. I know that in general most of these movements, like fair trade for instance, don’t want to stay indie and alternative but want everything to eventually be fair and green - but what about when it happens? In Australia (well Sydney and Melbourne at least) Macro has awed everyone with their organic super market approach. They’ve got a couple of massive stores in Glen Waverly and Richmond and some very competitive prices. Their Glen Waverly store is right in the middle of a shopping centre so would get a lot of walk in traffic from ‘normal’ shoppers. While this is great to raise awareness of the issues, and Macro seem like the real deal in terms of their values, what about the poor little organic ethical store that operates down the road? Are they threatened by these big supermarkets?

Well in Milwaukee at least it seems that they all play together nicely. The little stores benefit from the raised awareness these big stores create, and the little stores also can provide some things that big stores find it hard to. For example, localised services and pushing the bar on ethical procurement.

By the way Macro is a great place to shop if you ever get the chance. It feels so down to earth and is a nice place just to browse. Their prices are good and you even get lots of free samples. One of the only places I’ve seen peanut butter fair trade chocolate for sale! (this isn’t a paid plug, I just like to go there when I can). There’s also rumors of another organicy big store franchise starting up soon so that’ll introduce some more interesting competition into the industry.

More variety is always a good thing I guess.

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