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On our third and final day with Walmart we got to sit in on the company’s Saturday morning meeting. They used to meet each and every Saturday to convene and talk about how the company was doing, but now meet for these meetings once a month.

None of that really interested us though. Let’s be honest and say that we were really there for the celebrities!

Does she look familiar? Yes, it really is the very own Miss Paula Deen. You might not recognize the guy, but he’s someone pretty powerful too. That is the CEO of Walmart, Lee Scott. Paula was there to promote a new cookbook that she is releasing for children called, “My First Cookbook.” She says this cookbook is geared to the younger child, even as young as the age of three, and offers basic cooking tips to get your children in the kitchen. Her plans are to have a cookbook for a little bit older children, then the tween/teen set, and end her series with a cookbook for college students. They reported that Walmart actually held 46% of the sales for her last cookbook so she was really appreciative towards the company for helping her do so well.

She also will be selling her own line of cookware at Walmart. She chose a speckled pattern that reminded her of the kitchen she grew up in and her start in the cooking world. The pans are made with a nonstick surface and she has mixing bowls and accessories that you can buy as well.

Does this guy look familiar to you at all? Oh yes, Harrison Ford also joined the Walmart morning meeting to promote the release of the DVD of the latest Indiana Jones movie. He did a Q&A with the audience and they picked a lot of little boys to ask him questions. All you saw were a sea of little boys with Indiana Jones hats. The questions were things like, “Did you bring your whip?” and from a very mature little boy, “Who was your favorite female co-star?” To which Harrison then replied, “May I ask how old you are.” The little boy grinned and said, “I would rather not say.” Harrison retorted, “You have a lot to learn kid.”

The producer of the movie, Frank Marshall, was also there and talked a little about how exciting it was to come together and work on another project again.

Harrison gave Lee his very own hat and they made sure to get out the staple gun so that it wouldn’t come off. Lee wore this hat the remainder of the day!

Here are a few other celebrities that you just might recognize!

My favorite coupon gals! Erin (Coupon Cravings), Denise (The Centsible Sawyer), Alyssa (Keeping the Kingdom First) & Tara (Deal Seeking Mom).

And here are my favorite frugal gals, which I was so thankful to finally meet in person after all of our email exchanges and reading them for so long. Here I am with Jenn (Frugal Upstate) & Lynnae (Being Frugal).

I was also so excited to have had a bit of a Camp Baby reunion. Collen (Classy Mommy) & Christine (From Dates to Diapers) joined me in our trip for Johnson’s and so we were so thankful to have been able to have another reunion. These girls are the absolute best and I count myself lucky to have such cool friends!

After the meeting, we were hustled downstairs to get some autographs. As a personal note, I have this weird thing where I want to burst into tears when I meet or see someone famous. It is like my mind cannot process it and I have to burst into emotion. I held it together by a hair when we came face to face with Paula. She was so kind and personable, signing autographs and posing for pictures. She never acted like she was rushed or had to move on to anything and just talked to us. Somewhere there is a picture of myself with her floating around among the moms- I just can’t wait to see it. I did get an autograph, which I also almost burst into tears about.

We were so busy with Paula that we missed our autograph opportunity with Harrison. I am sure some people might find that funny, but if you met her, you would know why we were all about Paula that day!

If you can believe it, Lee actually sent us off on our bus, shaking each of our hands and thanking us for our time. Pictured here is one of the top 50 people to know in the tweeting world, Katja from Skimbaco Lifestyle & one of our lovely moms who works with the company providing survey feedback. There have been some promises made that our group will be brought to Walmart again and that they will be using some of us for some compensated projects to help them further.  I was very touched that Lee sent us off and that both the President and the CMO made time to come and talk to us and thank us for our feedback.

Overall, I am just very thankful to have had this opportunity to meet these wonderful women and to have had a glimse into the Walmart corporation. A big thank you to our host, John, for making sure each of us was taken care while we were staying there and anyone on their crew that made this trip possible!

We began our second day at Walmart, for the ElevenMoms trip,  bright and early and headed over to the Kellogg’s company for breakfast. The company set out lots of their delicious cereals and a toaster with boxes of Eggo waffles so we could make our own waffles for the morning.

Here our host from Walmart, John, poses with a couple of the great selections that Kellogg offers!

We gathered our breakfast and went into their conference room to get the scoop on Kellogg’s new campaigns. Kellogg’s latest advertisements let the consumer know that they can have save money by eating a Kellogg’s breakfast because one bowl of cereal with milk only costs the consumer $.50 compared to a breakfast bought at a fast food chain.

They also shared with us that they spent a lot of time, money, and research into changing the formulas on their cereals so that they can offer the same exact cereals with 1/3 less sugar. To round out the discussion, they also had two of their own moms share ways that they save their families money, which was really nice to hear that we were not the only penny-pinchers in the room.

Next, we headed over to the Walmart headquarters for a discussion on the company’s programs for sustainability. One thing that they didn’t have to point out was that these containers for recycling were placed all over the building. We were told that the company is extremely diligent about making sure ALL of their employees recycle and will even receive memos if the protocol for recycling is not followed.

A couple of things that I noticed while on the tour that were not related to sustainability were my favorite Redbox vending machines where employees could check out movies. I wonder if their employees use the Monday free codes like me?

There was also a lactation room where moms could pump. They had a small refrigerator and a chair where moms could have some privacy while they pumped.

Here was a series of boards that were shown where employees could leave ideas for sustainability issues that they would like addressed within the company. Some of them were funny, but most were very series about issues that the company could improve on. Another board offered green tips that the employees could try.

We were told that each employee has to make one sustainability commitment that they will work on for the year. Our host, John, shared that his commitment was that he was doing the best that he could to not print anything on the computer. They have even met with life coaches that can help them turn their life goals into sustainable goals. I was really impressed by this.

We then headed to the conference room where we could talk with the person in charge of all of the sustainable goals for the company. He shared some of the improvements they had made. For example, they are offering their reusable shopping bags for only $.50 and hope to do away with plastics. Our suggestions were that they offer some type of credit to encourage their consumers to use their bags. I also suggested coming out with a design that made it more convenient to carry the bags. Target, for example, has bags that fold and zip into themselves so they make it easy to carry them. If they came out with a design concept that made it easier to fold these bags and use them, I would use their bags more often. I also suggested coming out with bags in holiday colors so that I could put my Christmas gifts in these. I love that Target’s bags are red and so I planned to use these for the holidays. He seemed very receptive to our ideas and gave us a DVD to take home to watch about their sustainability efforts. There next step will be that Lee Scott will be traveling to China to do a talk on sustainability there and Cameron Diaz, who is now a big supporter of the efforts of sustainability offered by the company, is actually accompanying Lee to share their green message.

I wish we would have had more time to learn about these efforts, but I am looking forward to watching their DVD and seeing what improvements the company has made.

Next, we headed over to the Innovations lab where we got to see a glimpse into some of the future projects of Walmart and their distributors. We learned that Coke is working with Walmart to come out with lines of t-shirts that are made from recycled plastic and a blend of cotton materials. Pictured above is a uniform that is used oversees that is made from recycled plastic bottles. I believe they said that there are nine bottles that have helped to create these uniforms.

IBM shared with us a virtual world that they had created where it would be quicker and easier to go to the doctor using computers, decreasing wait times for patients.

We also learned about a program that Walmart is working on that would decrease your wait time while waiting for your prescriptions. Instead of waiting for one cashier, one cashier would be manning four kiosks where you could sign and take care of plugging in your information to receive your prescription, similar to their self-check lanes at the store. While you are plugging in your information, it would notify the cashier which prescription to get in back so they could be grabbing that for you while you are inputting the remainder of your information. They are trying to improve wait times for their customers.

This is another feature that they have been working for the over-the-counter medication section of the store. They partnered up with Google and twelve of the top doctors to make this feature available in stores. His name is Rex and he can guide you on choosing an over-the-counter medication. You would input your symptoms, allergies, and age to pick medications that would work best for you. The medications are randomly generated each time, not influenced by ad-placement, and the customer can quickly find what they need. They even have a map to tell you exactly where the medication will be and show you different packaging styles visually so you will be able to grab the right thing.

Briefly, we were shown that they are also doing this for their grocery section as well. You can input your dietary needs and allergies, what type of food you are looking for, and get a listing of foods and where they are located.

These features will be made available online so you could plan your grocery list and print recipes from your home computer.

Next we headed over to Store #1, to see what their store looked like. This store is going through the process of the redesign, but it showcased what they were working towards. It is hard to describe, but when you walk in, the first thing I noticed was the absence of stuff pulled into the center of the aisles. It was just clean and open space so that the aisles were generous and easy to navigate. It was lit well by skylights that were built in to bring in natural life, decreasing the amount of lighting needed in the store. I also noticed that if you looked straight back, the milk was right there along the back wall, making it a little easier to run in and get what you need.

Another feature that is difficult to explain, but that made the aisles more generous and cause less traffic jams with carts were the way the endcaps have been created to set back into themselves instead of being wide and difficult to get around. They are basically missing the lower shelving so that the pallets can be slid underneath, again, creating more space in the aisles.

This is the signage in the stores with English and Spanish written below. There was signage down all of the lanes, making it easier to find what you need within the stores.

Walmart is also using their influence to decrease the packaging on the products that are within the store. Above, is an example of a carseat that is normally packaged in a giant box. To save room on shipping and use less resources, they worked with the distruber to come up with reusable zippered bags that would take less room in the store and be more environmentally-friendly.

The decreasing size in detergents was actually started by the efforts of Walmart. They were looking for ways to shrink the package sizes so they could get more to their stores. Their efforts helped the distributors to come out with concentrated formulas that would take up less space in shipping.

We ended the day with a dinner at Bonefish Grill. The food was incredible and we had a nice time visiting and chatting about blogging. Pictured in the lower picture is myself with my good buddy Colleen, from Classy Mommy.