Alamogordo Business Spotlight: Honey & Eggs, why buy local (Roadrunner Emporium) verses at Walmart?

Honey & Eggs, why buy local verses at Walmart? Roadrunner Emporium, 928 New York Avenue Alamogordo New Mexico sells local La Luz honey and local free-range farm raised eggs but why buy local? This is why!

Why would I want to purchase eggs and honey at Roadrunner Emporium verses the convenience of Walmart?

1. Supporting local businesses and keeping money in the local economy
2. You are getting local quality honey and eggs verses what may not be pure honey and the eggs are not industrial produced eggs from industrial farms.
3. Health benefits to purchasing local products
4. Local purchases are better for the environment.

Local Honey and Eggs verses Industrial Walmart Honey and Egg, The Story Economics of Local Purchases:

Roadrunner Emporium on New York Avenue is partnered with 40 small business owners, artists, farmers, and antiques vendors. Each are local small business professionals. The farms in La Luz, the Naturally Balanced Farms products and others are all local and purchasing supports the local economy.

When one purchases a container of honey from Walmart let us review the travel path to get to your home. Much of the honey at Walmart and other big chain retailers and big chain drug stores originated in China and technically is not honey at all. More on that in a few minutes.

Its safe to assume a large percentage of the product marketed as honey in the big chain stores originated in China and as such travels thousands of miles to a Walmart or similar distribution center via ship, train and then eventually to your local store via truck. That product was purchased for pennies in China, the major expense is not the product but the shipping to eventually get it to you.

You then purchase the product at Walmart or your big chain retailer and 90% of the money from the sale goes to the companies headquarters and then overseas. A purchase from Walmart of honey or other items does not help the local community and does not help the American economy.

Here are the facts per the Alliance on American Manufacturing specific to Walmart:

95 Percent vs. 20 Percent

Walmart China “firmly believes” in local sourcing with over 95 percent of their merchandise coming from local sources. In America, estimates say that Chinese suppliers make up 70-80 percent of Walmart’s merchandise, leaving less than 20 percent for American-made products.

Source: Walmart China, Frontline, The Atlantic

$3.9 Trillion vs. $250 Billion

Walmart’s financial records show it collected $3.9 trillion in net sales between 2005 and 2014. In 2013, the company committed to purchasing $250 billion in American-made goods by 2023 – just 6 percent of its net sales over the past decade (5% in 2014). If Walmart continues to grow at the same rate, in 2023 the company will spend just 3.2 percent on American-made goods.

Source: Walmart Stores Inc. Annual Report 2014, 2010, 2005

5 hours for $10 million

Walmart makes $34,985 in profit every minute, meaning that Walmart makes $10 million in profit approximately every five hours. For several years, Walmart has been the single largest U.S. importer of consumer goods, surpassing the trade volume of entire countries. According to the Journal of Commerce, Walmart remains the top U.S. importer.

Source: Journal of Commerce: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

2.7 million Jobs Lost
Between 2001-2011, 2.7 million jobs were lost to China with 2.1 million in manufacturing.

Source: Economic Policy Institute

100 For Every One More than 100 U.S. jobs were displaced for every actual or promised job created through Walmart’s Investing in American Jobs initiative.

Source: Economic Policy Institute

When you purchase your honey from a local supplier or local store such as Roadrunner Emporium then you are supporting local small business owners and not a large corporation and as such you create local jobs and the money stays in the local economy.

When you buy local honey, you are getting authentic honey:

According to the FDA (as well as the food safety divisions of the World Health Organization and the European Commission), the one test that authenticates honey is the presence of pollen. If the liquid gold does not contain pollen, it is not honey. This prompted Food Safety News to test more than 60 different samples of store-bought honey for pollen. The results were damning:

76% OF GROCERY STORE “HONEY” HAD NO POLLEN IN IT!

When buying from drug stores like Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS, the failure rate went as high as 100%!

However, the FDA is not checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen. Ultra-filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey – some containing illegal antibiotics – on the U.S. market for years.

Food Safety News decided to test honey sold in various outlets after its earlier investigation found U.S. groceries flooded with Indian honey banned in Europe as unsafe because of contamination with antibiotics, heavy metal and a total lack of pollen which prevented tracking its origin.

Food Safety News purchased more than 60 jars, jugs, and plastic bears of honey in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

The contents were analyzed for pollen by Vaughn Bryant, a professor at Texas A&M University and one of the nation’s premier melissopalynologists, or investigators of pollen in honey.

Bryant, who is director of the Palynology Research Laboratory, found that among the containers of honey provided by Food Safety News:

•76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed. These were stores like Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.

•100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.

•77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target, and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out.

•100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald’s and KFC had the pollen removed.

•Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and “natural” stores like PCC and Trader Joe’s had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.

Purchasing honey at Roadrunner Emporium, 928 New York Avenue means you are getting real honey that is full of pollen and has the health benefits of local grown honey.

Health Benefits to Purchasing Local, Honey Eggs and Products:

Rich Local Honey has health benefits (Alamogordo Town News)

Local bees make local honey, which means the pollen they collect and bring back to the hive is all sourced from local plants. Since many seasonal allergies are caused by these same plants, eating honey that contains that pollen can possibly combat those allergies, the idea behind trace-exposure to allergens to desensitize patients to food allergies is one that is gaining steam.

In addition to potentially fighting allergies, one of the great benefits of local honey is that it is unprocessed and pure. The stuff you find in the grocery stores is often filtered, a process that removes the trace amounts of pollen it might contain and as detailed above is not pure and real honey. The purer the honey, the stronger its medicinal benefits, like potential anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties.

Local honey is known to be the best remedy for cough. This may be the best health benefit of honey. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend honey as the best natural remedy for cough. Honey is even better than some of the common medications for cough. Research shows that a tablespoon of honey can reduce the irritation in the throat. In addition, it reduces cough symptoms and helps in better sleep more than cough medications.

Good-quality and pure local honey contain some important antioxidants that are beneficial for your health. Antioxidants are your body’s natural defense against diseases and promote good health. They reduce the risk of strokes, heart attacks and some types of cancer. Antioxidants basically slow down the dangerous disease processes in your body. They work by destroying the free radicals in your body – compounds that can damage healthy cells. Research shows that honey contains variable amounts of polyphenols. These are powerful antioxidants that help in reducing the risk of cancer and heart diseases. Polyphenols are also present in fruits, vegetables, green tea, and olive oil.

The sweet taste of honey makes it a natural replacement of sugar. It contains about 38% of fructose and 31% of glucose which makes it sweet in taste. Sugar has a lot of harmful effects on your health and contains no nutrients, but only empty calories. Due to this reason, honey is supposed to be a better option than sugar.

Another major health benefit of local honey is its healing effects. Since ancient times, people are using it to heal burns and wounds and it is still common today. These healing powers of honey come from its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. Studies show that honey is most effective in healing partial thickness burns and infected wounds after surgery. Another study published in The Cochrane Library says that “topical honey is cheaper and better than other interventions like antibiotics – which may have other side effects.” In addition, honey can also be used in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers, which can have serious complications. On top of that, it can nourish skin tissues and can help in treating other skin conditions.

So rather the convenience of purchasing honey at Walmart or the big box retailers, take 5 more minutes and stop by a local store such as Roadrunner Emporium and purchase your local produced honey to ensure you are getting a local product that is pure and have the health benefits of real honey verses an over processed honey like product.

Local Purchases of Honey, Eggs and other products are Better for the Environment:

Different flavors of honey are available at Roadrunner Emporium and the flavors are based on the plants pollinated. Local plant life in La Luz and other honey producing farms factors into the local honey-making process. The honey produced at the farm comes in different flavors, including the traditional wildflower, orange etc. These flavors do not come from additives, however. Instead, they are created based on the plants from which the bees draw pollen. Releasing the farm-raised bees into select local plant life not only creates some incredible honey flavors, but it also helps pollinate the plants, which is beneficial to all local wildlife.

Besides benefiting the plant life, supporting local honey helps the bee population as well. Since bees are now endangered, it is more vital than ever to support local bee farmers in New Mexico and beyond who are helping raise and maintain healthy bees.

Another benefit of local verses the large store purchases is the carbon footprint. A jar of honey produced in China, shipped over on an ocean liner, carried by train to a warehouse and then trucked to the local store consumes lots of gas and spews lots of carbon into the air to get you that little jar of honey. However, is you purchase local La Luz honey or honey from your local community you are further reducing the carbon footprint and helping the environment.

So drop by and purchase your fresh eggs or honey, natural soaps and oils and artwork and antiques and other repurposed goods from, Roadrunner Emporium, 928 New York Avenue. Roadrunner Emporium is a local Main Street Alamogordo business, that is committed to enhancing the local community, providing alternatives to a healthier lifestyle, and enriching our community with offerings fine arts, antiques and locally procured products in a safe engaging environment that brings value to the Alamogordo community. Drop by Roadrunner Emporium and meet the 40 artisans and partner small businesses that offer unique and engaging products and are a vital part of the Alamogordo small business community.

Listen to this story as a podcast:

Local La Luz Honey and Pecans Roadrunner Emporium (Alamogordo Town News)

Author Chris Edwards Alamogordo Town News, 2nd Life Media

Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/, Food Safety News, Texas A&M University Palynology Research Laboratory, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-store-bought-honey-i_b_1118564, Source: Walmart Stores Inc. Annual Report 2014, 2010, 2005, Journal of Commerce: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, Economic Policy Institute , Economic Policy Institute

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