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In what seems to be a mixed message to consumers looking to stretch their food dollars, Ralphs is lowering prices on thousands of groceries starting Wednesday – but is also capping double coupons at $1. The latter money-saving program, where a $1 off coupon gets you $2 off one item, has been a mainstay perk at Ralphs for years. Now, the supermarket chain – Orange County's second largest – said it will only double coupons up to $1 off. So, a 75-cent coupon, will get you an additional 25 cents off. The change – announced Tuesday in promotional fliers –...

Grocery costs are going through the roof. Do you have any suggestions for trimming the skyrocketing grocery bills? We don't buy much in the way of pre-packaged or prepared food items and we do eat a lot of dried beans. Don't eat out much either. Still my weekly grocery bill is about 25% higher than I'd like. Let the suggestions roll...

MESA, Ariz., Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The sight of an old man being hit by a truck in Arizona touched off a feeding frenzy among witnesses who allegedly stole the dying victim's groceries. Not only were the man's groceries taken, but the only person who tried to help him also had his own bags taken. Mesa police told KPHO-TV in nearby Phoenix that the scavengers could face theft charges if they are eventually tracked down. The elderly victim was waiting for a bus Tuesday night when a pickup truck swerved off the road and plowed into the stop. The man...

        .......for $3.78 a jar at H.E.B. !                  

FBI arrests father and son shortly after the younger man returns from overseas, where he allegedly trained at an Al Qaeda camp. Lodi, CA – FBI agents have arrested a man and his father after the son allegedly admitted attending Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan that taught participants "how to kill Americans," federal authorities said Tuesday. In a case that was still unfolding, officials confirmed that Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer, 47, were taken into custody Sunday. Authorities said late Tuesday that they were still trying to determine whether the arrests represented the discovery of a small...

Norway's Food Safety Authority has instructed a grocery store to close after finding ten year old mutton in the freezer section. The local shop in Bugøynes, Finnmark in northern Norway also, unsurprisingly, lacked satisfactory hygiene routines, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. "They will have to get an internal control routine in place if they want their approval back, and it will have to be in writing," Anne Ingeborg Bye of the FSA told NRK. The shop is still open since closure cannot take effect until the next inspection, but NRK spotted no signs of marked improvement. The station found pork ribs...

Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez called the criticism regarding Memín “a total lack of respect for our culture.” We agree. Racist caricatures are a beloved tradition in Latin America—and where the hell do Americans get the gumption to attack our stereotyping of J**s, c***s, I****s and n****s? We love ’em—so much, we use them to hawk everything from flour to peanuts. Consider the following products, all purchased at local Latino grocery stores.

Near North Congress Avenue in Lake Park, Target and Wal-Mart both plan the souped-up versions of their stores called, respectively, Super Target and the Wal-Mart Supercenter. Expected to open next year, the stores in north Palm Beach County will be roughly a mile apart. It's just one example of how the retail giants are vying to snag South Florida sites as the population continues to boom and commercial-development land disappears. Their expansion is not without opposition. Some communities are concerned about store size and the impact on traffic and nearby residential areas. Yet it's the lure of grocery dollars that...

ACTION NEEDED NOW: Stop & Shop Supermarkets “negotiating” with Bay Windows to bring sexually graphic, revolting anti-Catholic newspaper back into its stores! Your hard work got it removed in the first place!  As you remember, about three weeks ago the two largest supermarket chains in New England, Stop & Shop and Shaws / Star Markets, bowed to pressure from their customers across the state (i.e., you!).  Both companies agreed to stop distributing ”Bay Windows,” a sexually graphic, anti-family homosexual newspaper, in their stores.This decision was hailed by families all over New England.  Click here to see what was in an...

City planners in Los Angeles are shocked to discover that people moving into downtown apartments are unwilling to give up their cars and live the way many Manhattanites and San Franciscans do - using the expensive subway, bus system, and taxi cabs for their daily transportation. And now local officials, who just a few years ago stopped requiring developers to build parking spaces in most loft buildings, are scrambling to accommodate automobiles — and their owners — downtown.

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

'Paper or plastic' is now 'computer or cashier' By Marie Ewald | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Morena Michelangelo shops for food in reverse. When she enters her local Stop & Shop supermarket in Quincy, Mass., she meticulously unfolds and lines up six brown bags along the bottom of her shopping cart. And even though she has plenty more groceries to buy, she rings up and bags her chips and soda. Rather than a backward shopper, Ms. Michelangelo considers herself a progressive one. She uses new technology - a mobile computer and bar-code scanner - that she plucks...

"union fat-cats have mobilized America's liberal elites in a desperate bid to defeat union-free Wal-Mart not in the market but in the arena of public opinion." The liberal elites are now going after Wal-Mart. What's next?

Shortage Expected to Cause Prices to Skyrocket Worth their weight in gold? At least one local restaurant has already changed its pricing because of high beef prices, and grocery store prices are anticipated to jump soon. “An astronomical increase,” is the way Ted Mackorell of Makoto Seafood and Steak House described the jump in beef prices this week. “It has been inching up on us for the last month,” Mackorell said, “but both of our purveyors came in this morning and said, ‘Brace yourself.’” Over the past month and a half, Mackorell explained, his beef prices have increased by about...

Sex for groceries in Zimbabwe From correspondents in Harare September 14, 2003 UNDER-AGE teenagers were prostituting themselves for groceries in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, amid food shortages and high prices, the Standard newspaper reported today. It said desperate girls were offering sex in exchange for "groceries and other basic commodities that are in short supply". Fifteen-year old Zandile Nyoni told the paper: "One of my regulars is a company executive, and he even buys groceries for me.". Zimbabwe is in the throes of severe economic difficulties, with cash and food shortages, and inflation running at more than 426 per cent,...

Supermarket Cards: An Overview of the Pricing Issues John Vanderlippe, CASPIAN It's about more than just higher prices. Brace yourself for "customer-specific pricing." For many consumers, the pricing issues surrounding supermarket "loyalty" card programs can be summed up in one simple concept: those without a card pay more at the register. The stores portray it the same way, but call it "rewarding loyal customers" with lower prices. Though this sounds simple, few things in life are as simple as they seem and supermarket cards are no different. Pricing issues with card schemes actually fall into two categories: savings and segmentation....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Slumping supermarket giant Safeway Inc. reported a fourth-quarter loss Thursday of $1.05 billion, reflecting the grocer's continuing headaches with two major acquisitions in Texas and Illinois. The loss of $2.37 per share for the October-December period contrasted with a profit of $353.6 million, or 70 cents per share, the previous year. Fourth-quarter sales totaled $10.01 billion, up from $9.93 billion a year earlier. Safeway absorbed $1.5 billion in fourth-quarter charges to account for troubles at two grocers, Houston-based Randall's and Chicago-based Dominick's, that it bought for a total of $2.5 billion during the late 1990s. {snip} Besides sustaining...

Who Moved My Arugula? By ROB KAUFELT After graduating from college in the late 1960's, unclear about my future, I drifted into the family supermarket business in New Jersey. From Day One, I bugged my father and uncle about all the things they were doing wrong. In response, they sent me to an old-fashioned supermarket training program. The course did not have its intended effect. Most of what I learned came from my roommate, who arrived in a Mercedes convertible with golf clubs in the trunk (I had a Pinto). He regaled me with his vision of a new type...