Innovative Healthy Products: What is better than Flax?

Try hemp for health!  Many of you know that I managed the world’s largest flax plant for Glanbia Nutritionals producing 47 value-added products from nutritious golden and brown flax seeds.  Their products are sold worldwide and are used in major name brands of cereals, baked goods, smoothies, energy bars, and animal foods.  Competition however is on the horizon.

I recently learned about another healthy alternative called hemp seed that is grown and processed in western Canada through Manitoba Harvest in Winnipeg.  The company is privately owned and produces a variety of oils and edible products from hemp focused on health, nutrition, quality, digestibility & sustainability.  Their products are described as raw, vegan, green, earth-friendly, whole food & delicious! 

Hemp Hearts are one of their many value-added products promoted as a great heart healthy option and according to Dr. Oz, they are ‘Brain Food’.  Try some on salads.  They appear in a variety of sizes in pouch packs and available across Canada at select Costco, Safeway, Supestore, Loblaws, Fortimnos,  Zehrs, Vitahealth, Fresh & Wild, Organza and numerous health food stores.

Stay tuned for part 2: Why try Hemp for Health!

What is Quality?

What is quality?  I propose that quality pertains to systems, projects, products and/or services provided by an organization with an expected value proposition related to the same.  It translates to "conformance to requirements" as set out by the value proposition and of course can be high, low or whatever the specification mandates. 

David Straker submitted an article that first appeared in Quality World, the Journal of the Chartered Quality Institute, stating that quality means understanding and optimising the whole system of value interchange between all vested parties including the company selling the product or service, employees, customers, governments and regulators. 

Christian Vest Hansen, quoting Robert Glass, says that quality is "a collection of attributes: portability, reliability, efficiency, usability, testability, understandability and modifiability."  Each of these attributes may rank differently in importance for any given project, product or service, but quality can never be any one of them alone.  Some may not care about portability at all, and a product that is only reliable and nothing else, cannot be considered a quality product.  Quality can be a high or low value as long as it meets the specifications set out at the beginning. 

Food quality by default assumes that a product is safe, meeting minimum standards of safety as defined by internationally recognized practices such as HACCP or GFSI.