Smith Dairy Products Company Joins Environmentally Friendly Companies

The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Oct.19) published a long article about Smith Dairy Products Company becoming earth friendly. President, Steve Schmid, and his long line of family involvement in the company have been in operation since 1909, but Steve says they are working toward joining other environmentally friendly companies.

You may have seen their trademark yellow gallon milk jugs in grocery stores in their 6 state market, which includes Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Michigan. However, they operate from 2 main locations, one in Orrville, Ohio and another in Indiana.

Steve Schmid said that he has already made the green initiative by reducing his 150-delivery truck fuel consumption by integrating Onboard Tripmaster technology. Other environmentally friendly companies are switching to eco friendly fuels, manufacturing processes and products too. Other ways that Smith Dairy is becoming environmentally friendly are ensuring the cows live an easy, drug-free life.

Smith Dairy employs 450 employees and sells ice cream, cottage cheese, and frozen shakes in addition to its signature line of milk products. Schmid says their company is actually saving money by reducing their routes and reducing manufacturing costs. However, Schmid realizes that they’ll never be a 100 percent environmentally friendly company because of the pasteurization process needed and its high energy usage.

Smith Dairy employees are constantly making suggestions how the company can be more environmentally friendly including their delivery drivers. Employees at Smith Dairy have decreased their water consumption, use biodegradable detergent at every entrance to reduce contamination inside each dairy processing plant and rigorous measures to keep the plants as clean as a hospital. “We have to make our whole operation more and more green,” Schmid said, “more environmentally efficient.”

For more information how Smith Dairy is showing their determination to be in the ranks with other environmentally friendly companies visit their Web site www.smithdairy.com. 

New Ideas in Green Architecture: Pre-Fab Homes

The latest in green architecture puts a new, Earth-friendly spin on what was once considered an old idea: the prefab home.

The mkHearth is a preconfigured green architecture home that is also a sustainable and modular re-imagining of the traditional American farmhouse. Designed by green architecture expert Michelle Kaufmann, the new homes are suitable in all climates and in both city landscapes and rural areas. Like most examples of green architecture, the mkHearth is built with renewable and recyclable materials.

The mkHearth uses both modular technology and prepackaged green architecture solutions that can create livable and elegant homes, which can be used to build multi-family developments. The mkHearth is also a great example of today’s green architecture philosophy because it’s more efficient than most traditional homes today. The house is built around a central hearth, a fireplace-like unit that efficiently circulates both heat and air throughout the house.

The green architecture house also boasts a rainwater catchment system and it is designed to capture the maximum amount of natural sunlight. 

New Online Green Directory of Products and Services Launched; Free Listings for Green or Sustainable Businesses Offered on Eco Friendly Website

Oct 20, 2008 09:00 ET

BEACHWOOD, Ohio, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ — Businesses and consumers are continuing to increase their demand for environmentally-friendly products and services. Until now, both groups were spending inordinate amounts of time simply trying to find these items. FairGreenTrade.com (FGT), a new eco-friendly Website featuring a green directory and sustainable offerings (from eco-tourism to energy saving devices to organic food) is now up and running.

A trip to a conventional retailer or shopping will have people spending too much time going up and down aisles or searching through pages and pages on eco friendly Websites to find the products and services they are looking for. Often these items are mixed among more traditional offerings.

FGT is designed to make finding green products or services easy for anyone, whether a beginner or an expert. Simple and intuitive categories have been set up on their green directory, and a vast amount of information is available to educate people about new products, events and initiatives. The FGT acknowledges companies that advocate green ideals and sustainability from organic food manufacturers’ such as Stonyfield yogurt and Amy’s Kitchen to their retailers like Giant Eagle and Kroger to large industrial manufacturers and retailers like GE and Home Depot.

“Putting together this powerful eco friendly Website has been very rewarding primarily because each business we deal with feels proud about their work towards helping the planet,” says FairGreenTrade.com CEO Jeff Weisberg. “The businesses who are listing with us are overwhelmingly supportive of our unique non-political and non-agenda driven mission. We believe everyone wants to help make this world a better place.”

Free basic listings for businesses, as well as paid enhanced listings, are available on FGT’s green directory site. Through aggressive marketing to consumers, businesses and associations, companies listing their products and services in this green directory will be reaching a large portion of their target audience. Companies are invited to go to www.FairGreenTrade.com to take advantage of this offer.

About FairGreenTrade.com

FairGreenTrade.com (FGT) is America’s new, searchable green directory to the wide and growing number of sources of sustainable, green and organic products and services for both consumers and businesses. FGT links anyone seeking anything green to the easiest path for the information, products and suppliers they need, while also linking suppliers to consumers and other businesses through their eco friendly Website. For more information, visit FairGreenTrade.com or call FGT CEO Jeff Weisberg at 216-896-0903.

Source: FairGreenTrade.com

CONTACT: Jeff Weisberg, FairGreenTrade.com, LLC, +1-216-896-0903,
jweisberg@fairgreentrade.com, or info@fairgreentrade.com

Web site: http://www.fairgreentrade.com/

For Environmentally Friendly Food, Go with Wild Alaska Salmon

You don’t have to be a fan of The Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” to know that Alaska is a hotspot for fish and other seafood. As one of the most bountiful regions for fish, Alaska salmon is one of your best choices when buying environmentally friendly food at a restaurant or a fishmonger.

That’s because, unlike its cousin the Atlantic salmon, Alaska salmon is less threatened by overfishing. Although groups like the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization are working to preserve the Atlantic salmon, it’s still a popular dish. Its future is still uncertain, which means the Atlantic salmon is not an environmentally friendly food.

You may have heard of the development of farmed Atlantic salmon as an alternative to the wild caught Atlantic salmon. This may seem like a good method of meeting the demand for fresh Atlantic salmon while at the same time giving wild Atlantic salmon a chance to recuperate. However, there are still questions as to whether this makes Atlantic salmon an environmentally friendly food. While faming does contribute somewhat to the wild Atlantic salmon’s recovery, the farming method isn’t perfect. That’s because many farmed salmon escape to the sea. Then they breed with wild salmon, which lessens the genetic diversity of the overall salmon population and leads to lower survival rates among the Atlantic salmon offspring.

Because salmon in the Alaskan pacific region is primarily wild-caught, and Alaska has strict regulations on the amount of salmon that can be caught each year, Alaskan wild salmon, like Chinook and Sockeye, are healthy and abundant environmentally friendly foods. Since 1959, the Alaskan constitution has mandated that “Fish… be utilized, developed and maintained on the sustained yield principle.” A mandate that helps the vibrancy of the Alaska salmon and offers you a good option for fish that is an environmentally friendly food.