Wal-Mart gets into organic cotton

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is pushing into organics with a vengeance. Wal-Mart is the No. 1 seller of groceries in the USA, a category it entered when it opened its first supercenter store in 1988. Today, the company sells fruits and vegetables, milk, bread and other packaged foods in nearly 2,000 supercenter stores and about 100 smaller neighborhood market locations, reports CNN Money.com

However, the retailer introduced organic food products such as milk and vegetables into the mix only about five years ago. Industry observers believe Wal-Mart hesitated to dive wholeheartedly into the lucrative 15 billion US-Dollars organics market because it didn't think higher-priced natural foods were a good fit with its core low-income consumers.

Today, it's all about organics and "going green" at Wal-Mart, not just in food but in clothing and even in electronics and other household products, especially as the company strives to expand its profit margins, find new growth opportunities and appeal to less price-sensitive customers.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burke said the retailer has already doubled its organic choices in fresh produce, dairy and dry food items this year. Among other initiatives, the retailer will launch a line of organic cotton baby clothes in May under its private label "George" and introduce organic infant formula. It'll also sell organic cotton T-shirts as part of this year's back-to-school offerings.

Beyond food, Wal-Mart also wants to take the "healthy" concept into the environment, home and electronics. To that end, Wal-Mart has promised to buy more fish from sustainable fisheries, it's selling more energy-saving light bulbs and is asking all its laptop vendors to develop more eco-friendly machines that limit the use of hazardous components in them.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/01/news/companies/walmart_organics/?cnn=yes