Current News

Vermont Business Magazine U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, celebrated the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) recent launch of the Organic Dairy Product Promotion (ODPP) program, which will invest $15 million in expanding access to organic dairy products to K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and other community-based programs for youth. USDA announced the program at Miller Farm in Vernon, Vt., which previously received USDA funding from the NE-DBIC to provide organic milk directly from the farm to a dozen local schools. 

Vermont Business Magazine New Chapter, a Brattleboro, Vermont-based vitamin and supplement company, has announced its first Upcycled Certified products, including its entire Wholemega Wild Alaskan Salmon Fish Oil line. The Upcycled Certified mark identifies products that have full nutritional value but would have otherwise been discarded for various reasons. Using these surplus foods to create new, high-quality items reduces food waste and promotes sustainable practices, both of which are core to the New Chapter brand. New Chapter has long been on the cutting edge of sustainable certifications having obtained Organic Certification on multivitamins in 2005 and enrolling products in the Non-GMO Project Verification program in 2010. 

Vermont Business Magazine After several years growing their real estate business throughout Northern New England, the Biondolillo family has sold their offices in Maine and NH in order to consolidate their Central Vermont locations. BCK Real Estate President, John Biondolillo said, "As exciting and rewarding as it’s been to acquire offices and expand along the Maine and New Hampshire coasts, we’ve always been a family brokerage and it was the right time to return to our roots. Our home office in Barre has always been our anchor, it’s where we built our home, raised our family and started our business."

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Secretary of State supports a district-wide revote to assure that every voter in the Bennington-1 House District has a chance to vote. The district-wide revote should occur because of an error in Pownal’s checklist, which placed about 40 voters in the wrong legislative district. The outcome of the Bennington-1 House race could have been impacted by this error because Democrat Jonathan Cooper’s margin of victory was only 25 votes over Republican Bruce Busa.

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont (UVM) Grossman School of Business (GSB) again ranks at the top of the Corporate Knights 2024 Better World MBA ranking, jumping from 5th in the world in 2023 to 2nd globally, and climbing to #1 in the United States. This makes the seventh consecutive year that GSB’s Sustainable Innovation MBA (SI-MBA) secured a top 10 position in Better World MBA rankings. It also marks the return to the top spot domestically again since it was #1 in 2019. Among U.S. universities, the Grossman School of Business’s SI-MBA program has always remained third or above in the Corporate Knights rankings. SI-MBA is an accelerated one-year program that focuses on equipping graduates with the knowledge and the toolkit to manage and transform businesses by embedding sustainability in their operations.

Vermont Business Magazine The Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce hosted its second annual "Heart of The Shires Luncheon" at the beautiful Lincoln Hall at Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home, on November 6th, honoring remarkable individuals and organizations that have made significant impacts across the region. The event, featuring keynote speaker Matt Dunne of the Center on Rural Innovation, gathered over 90 attendees, including local leaders, nonprofits, and social sector representatives, to celebrate community service and leadership in Vermont.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will be collaborating with the Vermont Safe Driver Program this holiday season to display a “Red Ribbon Tree” in six DMV locations around the state from November 10 until the end of the year. The Red Ribbon Tree is a reminder never to drive impaired or distracted. Each ribbon on the tree represents a person who lost their life on Vermont’s roads and highways due to an impaired or distracted driver. In Vermont, from 2019 to 2023, 56% of fatal vehicle crashes involved an impaired driver (impaired includes both drugs and alcohol), and 237 children were involved in crashes with impaired drivers. In 2023, there were 42 fatalities involving an impaired driver. Between 2019 and 2023, 10.7% of fatal crashes in Vermont involved a distracted driver.

Vermont Business Magazine Building Bright Futures (BBF) has announced a new round of grant recipients for the Vermont Early Childhood Fund (VECF), totaling $1.9 million for projects focused on Vermont children and families. VECF is now funded by the Vermont Integration Project: Building Integration in Vermont’s Birth–5 Early Childhood Systems (VIP B–5) Preschool Development Grant. Thanks to this federal grant, VECF expanded its funding substantially this year, from $105,000 for projects carried out in 2023 to $3.2 million for grants awarded in December 2023 and May 2024, and $1.9 million for this round of projects. VECF supports creative solutions to improve the well-being of children through age 8, their families, and the Vermont communities where they live. VECF was established in 2021 thanks to a generous grant from a private donor and was able to continue to fund projects in 2022 and 2023 with support from the Sunflower Fund at the VCF. 

Vermont Business Magazine Attorney General Charity Clark, along with Franklin County State’s Attorney Bram Kranichfeld, will host a free expungement clinic on Thursday, December 12, 2024, with appointments available from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Expungements wipe from your criminal record specific convictions and dismissed charges after a certain period of time has passed. Under Vermont law, most misdemeanors, 14 different felony offenses, and all dismissed charges can be expunged or sealed. The free clinic will focus on expunging and sealing criminal charges and convictions from Franklin County and will be open to the public by appointment only.  

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports was awarded the prestigious 2024 Bill McCollom Community Award by the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum, recognizing its transformative contributions to Vermont’s skiing and riding community. The award celebrates Vermont Adaptive’s commitment to accessibility, and empowering youth and adults with disabilities to experience outdoor sports and recreation.

Vermont Business Magazine The Attorney General’s Office announced that Paul A. Williams, 59, of Morrisville, Vermont, was arraigned Thursday on one count of felony Sexual Abuse of a Vulnerable Adult. The charge brought against Mr. Williams was the result of an investigation conducted by the Morrisville Police Department and the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Residential Abuse Unit (MFRAU), which allege that Mr. Williams, a licensed nursing assistant, sexually assaulted a 95-year-old vulnerable adult who was a resident of The Manor nursing home in Morrisville, where he was employed. Mr. Williams pleaded not guilty at the arraignment Thursday in Vermont Superior Court, Lamoille Criminal Division.

Vermont Business Magazine The average gasoline price in Vermont is $3.12 per gallon, down 2 cents per gallon from last week, down 6 cents/g from last month and down 46 cents from a year ago. The lowest price in the state today is $2.38/g in West Brattleboro while the highest was $3.34/g in Lyndonville. For the third straight week, the national average price of gasoline declined over the last week, falling 2.2 cents compared to a week ago, and stands at $3.05 per gallon today.