Latest news with #SteveHoffman
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Investing in the Earth: Natural, Organic and Regenerative Food and Ag Surges in Popularity
Sales continue to grow, now at $325 Billion annually by Steve Hoffman of Compass Natural Marketing NORTHAMPTON, MA / / May 19, 2025 / The market for organic food and agriculture has grown significantly since the National Organic Program was first established in 2001, placing the USDA Certified Organic seal on products that qualify for this distinction. Today, it's a $70-billion market that's been growing an average of 8% per year. And while it may be maturing, younger consumers, including new parents and their babies, are eating it up. And now, in the post-pandemic era, investors are once again paying attention to the potential of organic and regenerative products and brands that take into account health and the environment, and how the way we produce our food and consumer products affects climate change. A survey released recently by the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the industry's leading trade group, found that organic's benefits to personal health and nutrition are resonating deeply with Millennials and Gen Zer's, making them the most committed organic consumers of any generation. Also, a February 2025 study by the Acosta Group, one of the nation's top natural and organic products sales firms, reflected that 75% of all shoppers purchased at least one natural or organic product in the six months prior to the survey, with 59% responding that they think it's important that their groceries and/or household products are natural and organic because they "are better for them" and "they tend to have fewer synthetic chemicals and additives." Natural and Organic Industry is a Force. Overall, the natural and organic products industry combined has more than tripled in size since 2007, growing from $97 billion in sales in 2007 to over $325 billion in 2024, according to data compiled by New Hope Network, SPINS (a division of Nielsen), Whipstitch Capital and others. Read more investment insights in Steve's article and watch a Video from the 2025 Expo West here- ====== View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from GreenMoney Journal on Contact Info:Spokesperson: GreenMoney JournalWebsite: info@ SOURCE: GreenMoney Journal View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire
Associated Press
19-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Investing in the Earth: Natural, Organic and Regenerative Food and Ag Surges in Popularity
by Steve Hoffman of Compass Natural Marketing The market for organic food and agriculture has grown significantly since the National Organic Program was first established in 2001, placing the USDA Certified Organic seal on products that qualify for this distinction. Today, it's a $70-billion market that's been growing an average of 8% per year. And while it may be maturing, younger consumers, including new parents and their babies, are eating it up. And now, in the post-pandemic era, investors are once again paying attention to the potential of organic and regenerative products and brands that take into account health and the environment, and how the way we produce our food and consumer products affects climate change. A survey released recently by the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the industry's leading trade group, found that organic's benefits to personal health and nutrition are resonating deeply with Millennials and Gen Zer's, making them the most committed organic consumers of any generation. Also, a February 2025 study by the Acosta Group, one of the nation's top natural and organic products sales firms, reflected that 75% of all shoppers purchased at least one natural or organic product in the six months prior to the survey, with 59% responding that they think it's important that their groceries and/or household products are natural and organic because they 'are better for them' and 'they tend to have fewer synthetic chemicals and additives.' Natural and Organic Industry is a Force. Overall, the natural and organic products industry combined has more than tripled in size since 2007, growing from $97 billion in sales in 2007 to over $325 billion in 2024, according to data compiled by New Hope Network, SPINS (a division of Nielsen), Whipstitch Capital and others. Read more investment insights in Steve's article and watch a Video from the 2025 Expo West here- ====== Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from GreenMoney Journal
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Disaster strikes: St. Paul, Shoreview and Stillwater residents tell tales of house fires and recovery
Whether it's fires in California, flooding in North Carolina or the war in Ukraine, we're constantly reminded of the death and destruction that's all too common in this world. It can be easy, while watching cities burn on the news, to forget all the homeowners who lost everything in a flash, through no fault of their own. In each and every instance, there are human stories behind the people and what they've lost. We talked to a trio of families who survived catastrophic house fires — four months ago, two years ago and seven years ago. Thankfully no lives were lost, but those lives were changed forever. What's it like when your world burns down around you? Here's what they had to say. The family: Mary Jo and Steve Hoffman live in Shoreview on the south side of Turtle Lake. They're empty nesters with a son attending New York University and a daughter living in San Francisco. A former aeronautical engineer, Mary Jo had spent a decade posting a new nature photograph — using blossoms, leaves, sticks, stones and the like collected on her property — each day on her blog, before the fire forced her to pause. Target and West Elm have sold products using her images and, in May, she published the book 'STILL: The Art of Noticing,' a well-received collection of 275 of her photos and accompanying essays that's now in its fourth printing. Steve is a tax preparer and acclaimed food author who won the 2019 James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. He also published a book last year, 'A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France,' based on his family's time living in France and learning about food, wine and 'how to belong.' The date of the fire: Oct. 4, 2024. What happened: The Hoffmans were in Minneapolis doing a book-signing event when Mary Jo got a call from a neighbor: 'There's a major fire and it looks like it's in your part of the lake.' Panicked texts from others lit up her phone as they rushed back to their home, which is nestled in the woods and not visible from the street due to its three-quarter-mile driveway. They arrived to find police and fire trucks everywhere. At first, Mary Jo said, she thought it might actually be a neighbor's house on fire. But as they made their way down the driveway, they saw their cherished home up in flames. 'The very first thing we did was confirm the dog had gotten out,' she said. 'He had, and the neighbors were holding him. And then, you know, we just sat there and watched them try to put the rest of the fire out. The fire marshal said, 'Just assume it's gone. Assume everything's gone.' 'You would think you'd be crying or throwing up or sobbing or something. We just stood there, wide-eyed, and watched,' she said. Once the fire was out, the fire marshal collected their insurance information and the couple were left standing there, holding their dog. 'We were both so parched, we almost couldn't talk,' Mary Jo said. 'And I've learned that we had just had a massive, massive hit of adrenaline.' They stopped at a convenience store to buy water and then spent the night at the empty home of Mary Jo's mother, who was in transitional care at the time. The immediate aftermath: After a sleepless night, it really hit the Hoffmans that they had nothing left. 'It was a warm October day, so I was wearing open-toed dress shoes, dress pants, a blouse and a purse. That's it. Steve had on some nice, casual clothes and that's it. Everything else is gone,' Mary Jo said. Much to their surprise, they got a call from the Red Cross. A representative showed up with a care package and a prepaid Visa card loaded with $600. 'That was pretty cool, because we absolutely could have used our own credit card, but it was nice to know you had $600 to buy the basic essentials to get you back on your feet so you could start to think clearly. I wasn't ready to leave the house, but Steve ran to Target and bought underwear, toothbrushes, T-shirts and a pair of shoes for me,' she said. 'I didn't want to see anybody. It took me five days before I could even leave the house, when I had to start meeting with insurance and stuff. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but it was this massive, massive disruption. It's like a massive gut punch.' What happened next: The couple had taken on a new financial planner a few years back, so they had recently updated their insurance. 'That meant our house was insured for its current value, which was really fortuitous,' she said. The couple's policy called for up to 14 months of temporary housing equivalent to their current situation, a three-bedroom, two-bath house. But Mary Jo didn't want the responsibility of a house during the rebuilding process and found a new apartment with a lake view. First up, the Hoffmans met with a loss adjuster to negotiate payment for the contents of the home. Time was of the essence, as crews couldn't start cleaning up until they reached a settlement. 'We have a modern house and we happen to be minimalist,' Mary Jo said. 'But the few things we have were high-value.' After some back and forth over the next few days, the couple reached a settlement. 'I probably left a little bit of money on the table, but I didn't want to drag it out,' she said. 'I didn't want to count forks and spoons and slow down the process for four months for an extra $25,000.' From there, crews began emptying the house, cleaning up, ripping out sheet rock anywhere there was water damage. All the while, the Hoffmans, builders and the insurance agent negotiated the settlement for the home's structure. After much discussion of how much of the original structure should remain or if they should do a total tear down, the parties agreed on completely gutting two-thirds of the house, leaving a skeleton in its place. Local News | Right Track awards St. Paul employers and seeks 2025 interns Local News | St Paul: Opponents rally against trash truck refueling station near West Seventh Local News | MN Attorney General Keith Ellison: Counties cannot hold detainees for ICE without a criminal warrant Local News | 'None of them think of themselves as a hero,' motorist says of 6 honored for fiery I-94 crash rescue Local News | St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali bows off the council Construction just began after months of planning by the builder. 'As soon as they took the roof off, which was completely burned, they needed to be ready to, in a sprint, get a new structure up because of rain and snow. Everything had to be ready to go and they just took the roof off this week,' Mary Jo said. Steve runs his accounting business digitally, with all files stored in the cloud. But Mary Jo lost her photography equipment and the decades of work she had in the house. 'The fire marshal, the insurance guy, they all said assume a total loss,' she said. 'There were things that weren't burned, but had water and smoke damage. The smoke damage is so corrosive and acidic and permanent, you'll never get it out.' Still, in the early days, Mary Jo would grab items here and there, including Steve's James Beard award, his wine collection, an old French library table. 'I wish I would have grabbed more now,' she said. 'Maybe they had an acrid smoke scent to them. But I don't care, you know?' On when things started to feel normal again: 'Blue flashing lights and sirens are a trigger. I mean, I couldn't light a candle or use my oven in the apartment for two months. I was afraid of anything that was hot or had a flame,' Mary Jo said. 'I just said to my husband yesterday that I think I caught my first breath in four months and I can start to think past tomorrow. I don't think I'm there yet, but I'm getting to where I can see normal again.' The family: Reed Sigmund and Autumn Ness live in Stillwater with their two sons. They're both Children's Theatre Company members and well-known actors in the Twin Cities theater community. The date of the fire: Jan. 24, 2023. What happened: Reed was on the second floor and had just stepped out of the shower when he heard Autumn yell, 'Fire!' She escaped out the front door, while he managed to grab a pair of jeans before he realized the thick smoke threatened to overcome him. It was around 10:30 a.m., so the kids were at school. An electrical fire had broken out behind the couple's dryer and it spread instantly. 'The whole thing went up so fast, there was no escape down the stairs,' Reed said. 'I was trying to open a window and I turned around to see a wall, a black wall of smoke, coming at me. I had to hold my breath, punch out the window and jump onto a lower roof, then onto a table on the deck. I didn't realize how quickly house fires happen, how quickly they spread and how terrifying that smoke is. I caught one gasp of it and you feel it everywhere, like you're burning from the inside.' The couple watched their house burn down while sitting in a nearby squad car. Reed was shirtless, barefoot and bleeding from numerous cuts from the broken window. 'You sit there and you have no idea what to do,' he said. Neighbors welcomed the couple in for some food and Reed called their insurance agent, who drove over to meet with them in person. 'His name is Ian and he was really great. He was, like, 'OK, here's where we go from here.'' Another visitor arrived in the form of Elissa Adams, a longtime friend who is also associate artistic director for Theater Latte Da, where Reed was in rehearsals for a production of 'Hello, Dolly!' 'When I was in the squad car, I texted my stage manager and said I couldn't make it because my house is on fire,' Reed said. Word made it to Elissa, who showed up to help. 'She had already reserved an Airbnb for us and arrived with a handful of cash and was like, 'Go buy clothes, get whatever. What else can we get for you? Food? What do you need?'' Much of that first day sped by in a blur and Reed turned down a chance to see a doctor about his many cuts. Local News | The L.A. fires: A look at the footprints of devastation Local News | Families in shock begin to visit their charred homes in Los Angeles area Local News | LA was prepared for serious fires. But it wasn't ready for four. 'My back and hands were shredded, but I had too much other stuff to deal with. It had never occurred to me to go in for smoke inhalation, though. That afternoon, when I was talking, I slowly started to realize my words were getting very weird and I couldn't breathe. I got out of the car and started hacking up black stuff. I couldn't catch a deep breath.' Reed did end up going to the hospital, where he was put on oxygen and X-rays revealed he had smoke inhalation burns in his lungs and throat. 'It's an awful day to think about,' he said. What happened next: After spending a few nights at the Airbnb and a Woodbury hotel, their insurance agent secured a rental home for the family two miles from their Stillwater house. It didn't take long for some hard realities to start to hit. 'You don't realize how much your life costs until you have absolutely nothing,' Reed said. 'You have no socks, you have no underwear, you have no shoes, you have no shirts, you have nothing. 'The first big expense was replacing car keys and you think, oh, it's just car keys. We had our cars towed to the dealership so they could make new keys that cost $300 a key. So just getting those cost $1,200. It's like, holy cow, everything just costs so much.' The couple was able to save some random items from the charred remains, like her grandparents' cake topper, a wedding photo CD in perfect shape and Reed's wedding ring, which he had taken off for 'Hello, Dolly!' But pretty much everything else was either burned or damaged by smoke and water. Crews did restore an antique dresser that was tucked away in a far corner of the second floor along with some clothes that were in storage. 'But, for the most part, everything was gone,' Reed said. He credited the local theater community for offering seemingly endless support. 'The theater community is not made up of wealthy people. We're artists who do what we do for our passion and our love of it. And yet, to see how this community rallied the way they did. The support, the encouragement, the donations, it was very humbling.' The couple started to begin replacing things they lost in the fire, with their insurance reimbursing them. 'We had to go through the house item by item,' he said. 'How many curtains did we have? How many bowls? How many plates? How many books? Legos, you lost Legos. Those are actually pretty expensive. Well, how many Lego sets did you lose? Great. Now you need to tell them specifically which Lego sets you lost and they need to see a picture of that. Once you buy a new Lego set, you send in the receipt and they send you the money for it.' Returning home: The family moved back into their restored home on Dec. 11, 2023. 'I didn't sleep very well because there are all sorts of emotions, the painful ones, the grateful ones running through you,' Reed said. On the second day back, Reed noticed his dog — who survived the fire — was struggling to walk. He died soon after. 'It was like he stayed healthy the entire time we were gone and then when we got back home, it's like he exhaled and decided OK, I can die now. Man, that was hard because we were finally home and then we immediately lost him. Well, now it doesn't feel like home.' It took a while, but the family recently got a new dog. 'He's got poop on everything,' Reed said with a laugh. On when things started to feel normal again: By the spring of 2024, Reed said, in part because the family was able to start spending time out in their yard. 'But there are still times where, well, we're still going through the insurance thing, although we're coming to an end of that here soon.' Reed said he's still reminded of the fire every day. 'I mean, it'll pop into your head when you walk into a room and reach for the light switch and hit an empty wall. Oh yeah, that light switch got moved and now it's on the other side. Things like that.' The family: Heidi Raschke lives in St. Paul's Highland Park with her two daughters. She's a senior producer at MPR News and, full disclosure, previously was this reporter's editor at the Pioneer Press. The date of the fire: Jan. 6, 2018. What happened: On a bitterly cold Saturday morning, Heidi was fulfilling a promise to her youngest to help her organize her dollhouses. They were both still in their pajamas, but had grand plans for the day. 'We were in 'let's get things done' mode,' Heidi said. 'We're going to clean stuff up and then we're going to go to Michael's to buy wallpaper for the dollhouses.' They went downstairs to the room that held the water heater and furnace and Heidi's daughter said something sounds weird. As Heidi started to respond that she didn't hear anything, flames suddenly engulfed a wall in front of them. (She later learned a can of compressed air had somehow rolled beneath the water heater and ignited the fire.) The pair quickly realized they needed to get out of the house. After grabbing the dog and running outside, Heidi's daughter said, 'Don't forget the guinea pigs!' So Heidi, who was wearing socks but no shoes, retrieved the cage and car keys and rejoined her daughter. They huddled into the car and called 911. 'Five minutes later, they weren't there,' she said. 'I was frantic and called again and at that moment, six trucks pulled around the corner. I just sat there in the quiet car with my daughter, two guinea pigs in my sweater and the dog on her lap and watched our house burn. 'It was horrific. I couldn't believe it was happening. It was total chaos.' Neighbors soon came to help, with one offering to take the dog and another the guinea pigs. Yet another took in Heidi's daughter and got her into warmer clothing. At the time, Heidi was between jobs and already had plenty on her mind. 'I was about to start a new career and I was like, what if I get blamed for this? What if I lose my house and my insurance won't cover it? What will the insurance cover?' Once the fire was contained, Heidi was able to go back inside and grab a few items — a coat and boots for herself, a coat for her daughter and that was it. 'Everything was wet and covered in soot. I couldn't believe it, my cute little house from just a couple of hours earlier was completely destroyed.' For the next few hours, Heidi sat in her car and 'dealt with all the people coming to tell me stuff and ask me stuff.' That included the firefighters, the Red Cross ('they were wonderful') and someone from the city who came to turn off the water. What happened next: For the first few nights, Heidi and her family stayed with friends. The insurance agency then moved them to a residential hotel until they were able to find an apartment near Xcel Energy Center that ended up serving as their home for the next year. 'The insurance company provides furniture, pots and pans and things like that. But you literally don't have anything else. You don't have a pen, you don't have spices, you don't have paper clips, the basics of life. It was a lot of trips to the store in those early days. It was so weird to suddenly have to furnish this entire home.' Meanwhile, restoration crews began sifting through the remains of Heidi's house. 'There's a different crew for art, a different crew for textiles, a different crew for general household items. I had to meet with all those people at different times and they'd ask, 'Do you want to keep this? How about this? And this?' And it was freezing cold in my house. 'All my books were not salvageable, no toys, no costume jewelry. Most of the things in my home were not salvageable because of smoke damage and most things have plastic in them and they can't clean those,' Heidi said. Everything in the house was torn down to the studs, save for the three bedrooms, which still sustained smoke damage. 'I used to hear smoke damage and think, how bad can that be? But it destroyed everything,' she said. Returning home: The family moved back into their restored home on Dec. 28, 2018. Local News | Motorist sentenced to probation for leaving the crash scene after hitting pedestrian on I-94 in St. Paul Local News | Right Track awards St. Paul employers and seeks 2025 interns Local News | Ex-St. Paul officer sentenced for causing negligent fire at his family's restaurant Local News | St Paul: Opponents rally against trash truck refueling station near West Seventh Local News | 'None of them think of themselves as a hero,' motorist says of 6 honored for fiery I-94 crash rescue 'It was weird,' Heidi said, 'because it wasn't our house anymore. It was like a different space. I mean, I was excited to move home and it was exciting because it was all clean and new. But it was so empty.' Furniture and restored items in random, unmarked boxes began arriving. Everything was affixed with a tag featuring a barcode and Heidi's last name misspelled. 'I still find things in my home with those tags,' Heidi said. 'I'm still cutting them off things. How can this even be?' On when things started to feel normal again: 'I was just thinking about that when we had the seventh anniversary of the fire. So, I think it took about seven years.'
