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Taking
the gross out of the grocery cart Source of Article: http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=252831&src=120 Published: 11/24/2008 12:15 AM When Brad Blaine grabbed a cart on a recent
run to the Chevy Chase Supermarket in suburban He was puzzled, he says, until he figured out
that the cart had been pushed through a sort of car wash for shopping carts -
a hut set up at the store that mists a disinfecting peroxide solution onto
carts as they're pushed through. "As soon as I realized what it was, I
felt, 'Here's a store that's going through the trouble to make sure customers
feel safe,'" says the 48-year-old dad. The cart wash represents the latest effort
from both entrepreneurs and grocers to take the gross out of grocery carts.
Though hardly Public Enemy No. 1, shopping carts are gaining a reputation as
one of the dirtiest public places, with some found to harbor such microbial
villains as the diarrhea-causing campylobacter and the potentially deadly
salmonella. Cleansing-wipe dispensers have been appearing
next to shopping carts at grocery stores for some years now. But a host of
other products have emerged to appease germophobes
who shop. These new offerings include protective covers that minimize
infants' contact with the seat, full-cart liners and portable, snap-on
handles carried by consumers. No one disputes that carts harbor microbes. In
a study released last year, And a 2006 study of 442 infected infants in
eight states by the Centers for Disease Control showed that riding in
shopping carts next to meat was one of the biggest identified risk factors
for salmonella infection in infants, right below reptile exposure and
consumption of partially cooked eggs. Still, some public-health experts scoff at the
emergence of cart-sanitizing products, saying the best flu prevention comes
from remembering to wash your hands. "It is a futile endeavor to strive
for an antiseptic environment," says Rolf Halden,
professor at Elaine Larson, a professor at Columbia
University School of Nursing, adds: "Common sense says that shopping
carts should be cleaned every now and then." But, she says, "in the
relative risk of things, it's way down on the
priority list." So far, it has been hard to gauge the appetite
for this arsenal of new cleaning products. With sales of $25 million a year,
wipes provided at the grocery store are still a small part of the entire $1.8
billion wipes industry, but are growing about twice as fast as other types of
wipes, estimates Mike Richardson, industry analyst for the Freedonia Group in Cleveland, which has studied this
market. Still, relatively few grocery shoppers are
reaching for the wipes they see in stores. Purell
wipes, made by GoJo Industries Inc., are used by
only 5 percent of customers in the first year the dispensers are installed in
a store, though more shoppers tend to use them in subsequent years as the
behavior "normalizes," says John DePace, GoJo's director of market development for grocery.
Another brand of wipes, called SaniCart, is used by
between 15 percent to 20 percent of customers in stores
where the wipes are provided, a spokesman for manufacturer Nice-Pak
says. Meanwhile, the manufacturer of the cart wash PureCart's cleaning devices,
launched two years ago, are now in 21 grocery stores in the Other products are targeted directly to
consumers. A number of Whole Foods Market Inc. stores sell protective liners
for mothers who put babies in carts. Made by Pelham, N.H.-based Babe Ease
LLC, the Clean Shopper is a coverlet that allows the baby to sit in the cart
without coming into direct contact with it. The product retails for about
$30. Marge Dandy and her husband came up with the
idea for another variation on the theme, the Healthy Handle, after Ms. Dandy,
who had just completed cancer treatments, cut her hand on a plastic shopping
cart handle. The product is made from plastic and snaps over the handle. The Dandys, who live in |
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