Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Blake Hill’s “Wild Rose-infused Strawberry jam” from their new Botanical Jam Collection has won the Specialty Food Associations’ 2019 SOFI for Best New Jam/Preserve, as announced Wednesday. With Blake Hill’s new botanical “Wild Bergamot-infused Raspberry jam” also winning the US Good Food Awards earlier this year, this is an exceptional start for any new range.

Blake Hill’s new Botanical Jam Collection captures the essence of everything that is Blake Hill. At the very heart of this most exquisite range of jams are the wild edible flowers foraged from the Vermont meadows surrounding Blake Hill, providing a unique taste of terroir.  

Vermont Business Magazine Peck Electric Co, a leading commercial solar engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company based in Burlington, has announced the completion of seven solar projects in the fourth quarter of 2018 ranging from a 7-MW utility scale solar array to a 20.6-kW rooftop installation. Peck also recently anounced that it will become a publicly traded company during the second quarter of this year.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Electric Co-operative members will be able to get the very latest on the fast-moving electric vehicle marketplace in Vermont and also enjoy a complimentary breakfast and great door prizes at the co-op’s annual meeting May 11 at Jay Peak Resort. The meeting’s theme is Driving into the Future: Electric Vehicles in Rural Vermont, and the event will feature a panel of experts on electric vehicles - including a VEC member who owns an all-electric Nissan Leaf - who will share their expertise and experience with this emerging technology.

Plug-in hybrid electric car charging. Photo VEC/Kevin Goddard

Vermont Business Magazine The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the availability of nearly $87 million in grant funding to assist states, tribes, and territories with improving drinking water. The six New England states have been allotted more than $6.5 million under the two programs: $1,251,000 for Connecticut; $826,000 for Maine; $1,953,000 for Massachusetts; $834,000 for New Hampshire; $1,123,000 for Rhode Island; $600,000 for Vermont.

"EPA is committed to ensuring all Americans, regardless of their zip code, have access to safe and clean drinking water,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “With these grants, EPA is fulfilling its core mission of providing states, tribes, and territories with the resources needed to protect children from lead exposure and other contaminants and ensure all American families have safe drinking water.”

Vermont Business Magazine Bill McKibben will give a talk and read from his latest book, "Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?" With an interview, Q&A, and book signing. Co-Sponsored by Bear Pond Books & The Vermont Chapter of the Sierra Club. Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control.

Vermont Business Magazine Shaw’s revealed today that South Burlington resident Kristen Andersen has won the $1 million prize in the Albertsons Companies 2019 MONOPOLY Collect & Win Game. Kristen won the prize by shopping at her local Shaw’s store and collecting all eight markers needed to fill up the $1 million cash prize space on the MONOPOLY game board. Shaw's also gave her tickets to a Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway.

​Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Downtown Development Board allocated over $600,000 in grants to improve eight downtown areas. Grants will support sidewalk improvements in Randolph, St Albans, and Newport; expand Comtu Falls Park in Springfield; provide wayfinding signs in Montpelier and Winooski; and enhance the rail station in Middlebury. 

Vermont Business Magazine Casella Waste Systems, Inc (NASDAQ: CWST), a regional solid waste, recycling and resource management services company, reported after markets closed on Tuesday that its financial results for the three month period ended March 31, 2019. Shares spiked in early trading Wednesday before settling about where they previously finished at $37.27. Shares are trading near their 52-week high ($23.38 - $39.31).

First Quarter Highlights:

Vermont Business Magazine The Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Vermont Convention Bureau, and the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation (GBIC) announced Monday that they will host the Fourteenth Annual Taste of Vermont Reception in Washington, DC, with honored guest Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), on Thursday, May 9, 2019. The annual event has become well known throughout the Capital Region for its dynamic showcase of Vermont products.  More than 60 Vermont businesses will be represented at the reception, and many are traveling to Washington for this special event. Representatives of Vermont food and beverage makers will have the opportunity to greet Members of Congress, food writers and policy makers from federal agencies and others in an effort to bring more business to Vermont.

Vermont Business Magazine The National Academy of Sciences has announced the election of Mark Nelson, PhD, University Distinguished Professor and Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Vermont, as a member, in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Nelson joins 100 new members and 25 foreign associates elected April 30, 2019 to the National Academy of Sciences.

Vermont Business Magazine US Senator Bernie Sanders issued the following statement on President Trump's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage proposal: “The proposal by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to send our nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain would be a geological, environmental, and social disaster. The site is located less than 100 miles from Las Vegas and sits atop an aquifer in a seismically active area. Nevada’s entire congressional delegation, governor, the Western Shoshone Native American tribes and two-thirds of Nevadans oppose a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository..."