Wal-Mart to Stock Organic Infant Formula

While organics remain a small part of the US food industry, they are said to be a key growth opportunity for Wal-Mart as the retailer looks for ways to get customers to buy more.

15/03/06 PBM Products, LLC, supplier of Wal-Mart Stores’ Parent’s Choice brand of infant formulas, has announced it has partnered with Wal-Mart to launch new Parent’s Choice Organic Infant Formula with a Blend of Lipids DHA and ARA, the key fatty acids for infant brain and eye development. The DHA and ARA in Parent’s Choice Organic are derived from natural vegetarian sources developed by Martek Biosciences.

Featured exclusively at Wal-Mart locations nationwide, Parent’s Choice Organic is claimed to be the only nationally distributed organic infant formula with DHA and ARA that is nutritionally complete and meets the strict nutritional infant formula guidelines determined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Yesterday it emerged that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. aims to be the mass-market provider of organic food, and will double its organic offerings over the next couple of weeks. While organics remain a small part of the US food industry, they are said to be a key growth opportunity for Wal-Mart as the retailer looks for ways to get customers to buy more.

“Over the past year, our customers have consistently told us they would be interested in an organic infant formula, if only they could afford it,” said PBM Products CEO, Paul B. Manning. “Parent’s Choice Organic is the result of our listening to these parents and doing what we as a company do best—providing parents with trusted nutritional products at an affordable price. And by working with our partners at Wal-Mart, we are able to provide this organic product choice to more parents than ever before.”

Parent’s Choice ORGANIC Infant Formula with a Blend of Lipids DHA and ARA is:
 
• Certified Organic in accordance with USDA regulations
• Certified Organic by Quality Assurance International (QAI)
• Produced without using pesticides, added growth hormones, or antibiotics
• Enriched with 17 mg of DHA and 34 mg of ARA per 100 Calories – the same levels as Enfamil LIPIL
• Fortified with iron and contains all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients required for a healthy baby's first year
• Sensibly priced at less than $20 for a 25.7 oz can size

The lipids DHA and ARA in Parent’s Choice ORGANIC are derived from natural vegetarian sources by Martek Biosciences. The company writes that these single-cell vegetable sources provide the closest match to the DHA and ARA found in breast milk and are the only sources of DHA and ARA recognized by the FDA as safe for inclusion in infant formulas.