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I was coming through the grocery line today when I encountered a female, middle-aged African American cashier sporting three (3) Obama political buttons on her smock. I paid for my items and promptly called Safeway's Pleasanton, CA headquarters and asked for the Public Relations office where I spoke to the Director. I asked her if Safeway, Inc. was officially endorsing Barack Obama as one of their cashiers clearly was showing political partisanship in the workplace. She said, "No, we have a strict dress code of no athletic, political or religious insignia". She asked for the store address and assured me...

The plastic grocery bag is fighting for its crinkly life.From the city of San Francisco to Los Angeles County, more than a dozen local governments around the state have proposed or passed plastic-bag restrictions, ranging from recycling mandates to outright bans.Now, a proposal in the Legislature would put a 25-cent fee on all disposable bags – paper or plastic – given out at drug and grocery store check stands starting Jan. 1, 2010. It has won key support from the grocery and retail industries and faces its next legislative step today. Those in favor of the fee, led by Assemblyman...

Companies throughout the food chain are changing the way they do business in response to soaring grain costs, and consumers are likely to bear the brunt in the form of rising food prices. Farmers are making the broadest cuts to their livestock herds in decades, meaning meat at the supermarket will likely cost more in coming years. Middlemen are trying to shorten the duration of supply contracts to 90 days from one year so they can pass on higher costs more quickly. And food brands are shrinking the contents of their packages, from ice-cream cartons to beverage containers. ...In another...

The construction of a new Whole Foods grocery store at Hilldale Mall may be in jeopardy. On Tuesday, Whole Foods reported a 30 percent drop in the company's profit for the third quarter, and announced it will reduce the number of stores expected to open in fiscal year 2009 from 21 to 15.The company, which is traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol WFMI, reported its earnings late Tuesday. The stock was trading around $20 recently, a 13 percent plunge."The challenging economic environment appears to be negatively impacting our sales," John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods, said in...

The council plans to ban plastic carryout bags in the city's stores by 2010, unless the state imposes a 25-cent fee on those who request them.

(edit)   Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin proposed a 20-cent "green fee" Wednesday on all disposable bags to encourage customers to carry their milk and eggs home in their own bags. Forget the canvas sacks at home? Shoppers at grocery, convenience and drug stores will pay the price starting Jan. 1, if the City Council approves. A family buying six bags of groceries a week would spend $62.40 a year in bag fees. The city will issue one free reusable shopping bag to each household."The answer to the question 'Paper or plastic?' should be 'Neither,' " Nickels...

Supermaket chain Tesco has announced that a range of its own-brand products will carry labels showing the size of the goods' carbon footprints. Tesco said it would label 20 items, including light bulbs and potatoes, during a two-year trial of the scheme, which is operated by the Carbon Trust. Shoppers will be able to see how much carbon is emitted over the life of a product - from manufacture to disposal. The store said it was introducing the labels in response to consumer demand. "Customers tell us that it is very important to them," said David North, Tesco's community and...

Families are having to spend almost £800 more on their annual grocery bills as the highest rate of food inflation for a generation drives up supermarket prices, research suggested yesterday. The cost of a basket of 24 basic items such as tea bags, milk, cornflakes and pasta sauce at the three biggest stores has risen by 15 per cent over the past year.   Compare prices of 24 grocery items A kilo of Tesco garden peas has increased from £1.10 to £1.79; a dozen medium free-range eggs from Sainsbury's has climbed from £1.75 to £2.58; and a bag of fusilli...

I'm not as worried about gas prices as I am wheat prices. I can ride the bus if gas gets too expensive but I can't eat my neighbors bread. If we keep taking all the corn in the country and using it for our little ethanol transportation experiment we have less corn to feed cows and less land to plant in wheat. Fewer cows get slaughtered but their are also fewer amber waves of grain to behold. The cow problem solves itself over time because we just sell the ones we have sooner at a lower price and don't breed...

When William Lapp, of US-based consultancy Advanced Economic Solutions, took the podium at the annual US Department of Agriculture conference, the sentiment was already bullish for agricultural commodities boosted by demand from the biofuels industry and emerging countries. He added a twist – that rising agricultural raw material prices would translate this year into sharply higher food inflation. “I hope you enjoy your meal,” Mr Lapp told delegates during a luncheon. “It is the cheapest one you are going to have at this forum for a while.” His warning that a strong wave of food inflation is heading towards the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US grocery chain Trader Joe's said Monday it would stop selling food imported from China due to customers' concerns about the products' safety. "Our customers have voiced concerns about products from this region and we have listened," Trader Joe's spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki said in a statement. "All single ingredient food items sourced from mainland China are scheduled to be out of our stores by April 1," she said. "We will continue to source products from other regions until our customers feel as confident as we do about the quality and safety of Chinese products."

Looking out his office window Tuesday, Mike Dailey spotted something hanging in a tree. It was a plastic shopping bag. "Maybe that's part of the problem," said Dailey, an engineer with the city of Madison and adviser to the city's Commission on the Environment. "They're out there blowing all over the place." Difficult for some cities to recycle and a trash collection nightmare, plastic bags have made it on the environmental hit list of some cities, and now retailers. Whole Foods on Tuesday announced that it would end use of plastic in all of its stores. Stores will deplete inventory...

Some grocery coupons go digital By DAN SEWELL, AP Business Writer Sun Jan 13, 2:20 PM ET Some coupon users are clicking instead of clipping these days to get their grocery discounts. Supermarket chains are trying out paperless, or digital, coupons, to help the thrifty-minded save time while saving money. Shoppers load the online discounts onto their store loyalty cards, receiving the credit at the checkout. Grocers see the innovation as a way to build customer loyalty, drawing consumers who are increasingly spending time online to their Web sites and ultimately, their stores. The move could increase coupon use by...

(2007 Grocery Manufacturers Association/Food Products Association Fall Conference) Renaissance Hotel Washington, D.C THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming. Thank you all. Please be seated. Billy, thank you. I asked Billy where he works. He said, well, I run Sunny Delight beverage company. I said, well, Billy, I quit drinking. (Laughter.) He said, that's not that kind of alcohol. I thank you all for having me. Billy, thank you for your kind words. He's from Cincinnati. I was in Cincinnati the other day, stopped off and got some ribs, and he tried to ask me to compare Texas ribs with Cincinnati ribs....

Trader Joe's, the hip, wholesome food store with 15 locations in the Chicago area, said Friday it will phase out foods imported from China amid concerns that standards on "organic" products from the country aren't as stringent as they should be. Alison Mochizuki, spokeswoman for the Monrovia, Calif.-based grocer, e-mailed a statement saying the grocer will phase out single-ingredient products from mainland China by Jan. 1. Trader Joe's will be phasing out all foods made in China from stores in Chicago and around the country. "We feel confident that all of our products from China meet the same high quality...

CAPE CORAL - Publix supermarket chain said today it will make seven common prescription antibiotics available for free, joining other major retailers in trying to lure customers to their stores with cheap medications. The oral antibiotics, representing the most commonly filled at the chain's pharmacies, will be available at no cost to anyone with a prescription as often as they need them, Publix CEO Charlie Jenkins Jr. said. Fourteen-day supplies of the seven drugs will be available at all 684 of the chain's pharmacies in five Southern states. The prescription antibiotics available under the program are amoxicillin, cephalexin, penicillin VK,...

JACKSON, Mich. (AP) — Two grocery store employees have been fired after they didn't punch out while viewing a 300-vehicle procession funeral procession for a soldier who was killed in Iraq. Polly's Country Market store produce manager Ron Klimmer and produce retail clerk Michael Wahr received notice of their firings in letters from the company mailed to their homes, said United Food and Commercial Workers Local 951 business representative Scott Gould. They were punished for watching the June 19 funeral procession of Army Sgt. Matthew Soper. The Jackson resident died June 6 in Bayji, Iraq, of wounds from an improvised...

A Butte County jury has found a Gridley supermarket not liable to pay civil damages to an illegal alien who slipped and fell on a grape inside the store. The plaintiff, who suffered a fractured kneecap in the incident, had sought over $400,000 through her lawyer for past and future medical expenses, and pain and suffering. The jury was not specifically told the shopper was an illegal alien, only that she "couldn't legally work in this country." Superior Court Judge Barbara Roberts read a stipulation to that effect to the jury after the woman's San Francisco attorney, Rafael Crespo Jr.,...

SCAGGSVILLE, Md — Stephanie Cerneck doesn't go through the checkout line at her supermarket anymore. Or even the self-checkout line. She uses a personal scanner offered by the Bloom grocery store near her home, scanning each item as she takes it off the shelf and bagging as she shops. When she's done, she pays at a terminal at the front of the store. "When I come up to the checkout, everything's already bagged, I go to my car, I'm done. No waiting in line," she said at the suburban store between Washington and Baltimore. The handheld scanner lets customers keep...

Daniel posted awhile back on a bill, proposed by a Democrat (hey, I found some common ground!), that would allow grocery stores to provide 6 ounce samples of beer to their customers...it was just passed by the Wisconsin State Senate unanimously...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani hasn't done a lot of grocery shopping lately — at least based on his answers about the cost of milk and bread. Campaigning in Alabama on Tuesday, the former New York City mayor portrayed himself as a fiscal conservative and an aggressive fighter of terrorism who has a lot in common with the Deep South state. But when asked about more mundane matters — like the price of some basic staples — Giuliani had trouble with a reporter's question. "A gallon of milk is probably about a $1.50, a loaf of bread...

Tuesday, February 20, 2007Grocery industry prepares for pandemic bird flu with little government oversight By TIMBERLY ROSS The Associated Press OMAHA, Neb. – Stocking up on food is as simple as a trip to the grocery store, a veritable land of plenty for Americans. ''It's so easy when you have three grocery stores in your vicinity,'' said Becky Jones of Omaha, who stocks up once a week for her family of three. ''You think: how could you possibly not get what you needed?'' But will fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, milk and other household staples still be available if...

Apparently, the pimp-my-ride craze is now hitting grocery carts. A New Zealand firm is test-marketing brightly colored plastic shopping carts designed for children. Each cart seats two, has a top-load overhead storage bin and comes with small a DVD player in the dashboard. The TV Kart, which resembles a cage (one would hope that is purely coincidental), offers Barney, The Wiggles and Bob the Builder. Children are now able to watch television from the comfort of home, in the car on the way to the grocery store, while at the grocery store, in the car on the way home from...

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?

The "Case of the Double Labels" is still under investigation, but a spokesperson for the company that makes the product called "Hill Country Fare Bacon Grill Lucheon Meat" -- an HEB(grocery store) house brand -- did confirm from the canned meats markings are that of pork. The can and labels were produced by food giant Tyson Foods. What can't be explained is how an Arabic label for "Al Haloub Cow" brand was underneath the Hill Country label. (See previous story below.) Archie Schaffer III is Senior VP of External Relations at Tyson Foods' headquarters in Arkansas. He confirmed that an...

Consumers report that Wegmans is No 1. The regional supermarket chain, based in Rochester, sits atop the latest Consumer Reports magazine retail rankings of 54 U.S. chains that sell groceries. They include traditional supermarkets and warehouse clubs, limited-assortment discounters and boutique stores. Consumer Reports surveyed 24,000 readers and compiled 38,000 reports from April 2004 until June 2005. The results are published in the October issue of the magazine, which subscribers started receiving Wednesday in Central New York. It goes on sale in stores Tuesday. Joan Eve Quinn, speaking for Consumer Reports, said after the data is collected, it takes Consumer...

LOS ANGELES A Korean grocers' group sued former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young for libel for claiming that they and other market owners "ripped off" blacks. The suit, filed last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, also names the Wal-Mart store chain and seeks at least $7.5 million in damages. The former Atlanta mayor resigned as head of a Wal-Mart advocacy group on Aug. 18 amid controversy over comments he made to the weekly, black-owned Los Angeles Sentinel. In an interview, Young said that Wal-Mart competition had forced smaller, "mom-and-pop" stores out of his neighborhood. "But you see, those are...

San Antonio, Texas -- site of the famous 19th-century battle at the Alamo -- is now host to another potential battle that is brewing, this one between homosexual activists and conservative Christians. The battle is centered on, of all things, a statewide chain of grocery stores. The H-E-B Grocery Company, with headquarters in Kerrville, began more than 100 years ago with one tiny family store. It now boasts over 300 stores across the Lone Star State and in northern Mexico and more than 56,000 employees. It also boasts of giving millions of dollars annually to charitable organizations, educational initiatives, and...

Customers craving fresh crustaceans will have to look beyond Whole Foods Market Inc. after the natural-foods grocery chain decided Thursday to stop selling live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that it's inhumane. The Austin-based grocer, which has stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, spent seven months studying the sale of live lobsters from ship to supermarket aisle, trying to determine whether the creatures suffer along the way. In some stores, they experimented with "lobster condos," filling tanks with stacks of large pipes the critters can crawl inside. And they moved the tanks behind seafood counters and away from...

No wonder people think this town is goofy. The Whole Foods Market chain headquartered here in Austin is thinking about stopping the sale of live lobsters because it could be cruel to the lobsters. "We're reviewing the entire process literally from boat to plate to see if we can make some significant improvement in that whole supply process," Whole Foods spokeswoman Kate Lowery said. One way Whole Foods could make some significant improvement would be to release all the lobsters into Town Lake. That way I could collect them and eat them. Still, on Thursday the Whole Foods leadership will...

The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart, the bane of all limousine liberals and aging hippies, has entered the "crunchy granola" market: Beginning later this year, Wal-Mart plans to roll out a complete selection of organic foods — food certified by the U.S.D.A. to have been grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers — in its nearly 4,000 stores. Just as significant, the company says it will price all this organic food at an eye-poppingly tiny premium over its already-cheap conventional food: the organic Cocoa Puffs and Oreos will cost only 10 percent more than the conventional kind. Organic food will...

Most of the nation’s major food producers are hard at work developing organic versions of their best-selling products, like Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and Kraft’s Mac & Cheese. Why the sudden activity ? In large part because Wal-Mart wants to sell more organic food — and because of its size and power, Wal-Mart usually gets what it wants. As the nation’s largest grocery retailer, Wal-Mart has decided that offering more organic food will help modernize its image and broaden its appeal to urban and other upscale consumers. It has asked its large suppliers to help. Some organic food advocates applaud the...

Robert B. Wegman, 87, who introduced the idea of one-stop shopping at his family-owned chain of supermarkets, which are the envy of the industry for their unparalleled levels of customer and employee loyalty, died April 20 at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. The cause of death could not be learned. In more than a half-century at the helm of Wegmans Food Markets Inc., Mr. Wegman built an innovative company that combined business success and humanitarian ideals. He pioneered the concept of one-stop shopping and the superstore, with bakeries, imported foods, cafes and photo labs all under one roof. He...

Northern California's food fight is coming to a store near you. It's already hit Mary Thomatos, a loyal Albertsons customer until the chain closed its J Street store near her east Sacramento home last summer. Now the future of the other 25 Albertsons in the Sacramento region is in doubt after their parent company was sold last month. With Ralphs Supermarkets closing eight area stores soon, the grocery landscape is shifting so rapidly that by summer many consumers may no longer recognize their neighborhood store. Such change, those in the industry say, is something most of us should get used...

Wal-Mart has dropped plans to build a store in Northridge, saying Monday that a city request for a full environmental and economic impact study would have delayed the project more than a year. Project opponents cheered the news, saying the community didn't need another mega-store at the congested intersection of Nordhoff Street and Tampa Avenue. The area already has a Target, a Kmart and a mall. Three other Wal-Mart stores are within seven miles of the proposed site. "This is a tremendous victory for the community," Councilman Greig Smith said in a statement. "I've said from the beginning that the...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - An investment group has offered to buy Albertsons for nine-point-six (B) billion dollars, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. The buyers named in the report are Cerberus Capital, Kimco Realty Corporation and Minnesota grocery chain Supervalu Incorporated. The deal is valued at 26 dollars per share and includes six-point-four billion in debt. If the transaction happens, it would put an end to a three-month auction for Boise-based Albertsons. That began after lagging results and competition from lower-cost rivals including Wal-Mart. Albertsons officials declined to comment on the transaction. They also wouldn't say if the second-biggest U-S...

The Ralphs supermarket chain has been indicted on charges it violated a number of federal labor laws during the 2003 grocery strike in Southern California. The 106-page indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles today. Prosecutors say the grocery chain issued thousands of paychecks to employees hired under false names and allowed the workers to cash the checks at its stores. The indictment also says the chain tried to conceal the practice from the union by sending locked-out employees to work at stores far from the ones where they were regularly employed. Ralphs locked out its...

Safeway, based in Pleasanton, Calif., said it will close 26 underperforming stores by year's end, including nine Tom Thumb stores in Dallas-Fort Worth. It will also shutter 16 Randalls stores in Houston and one in Austin. That will leave Safeway with 62 stores in Dallas-Fort Worth, 36 in Houston and 14 in Austin. It plans to remodel many of the remaining Texas stores to create so-called lifestyle centers, with higher-end products *** Analysts viewed the closings as a better alternative than exiting the market – an option never suggested by the company but repeatedly mulled by industry observers. They also...

The owner of a Portland, Ore., grocery chain has removed Rockstar energy drinks from the shelves. The founder of Rockstar, Russell Goldencloud Weiner, is the son of Michael Savage, the perpetually enraged talk radio host. Brian Rohter, owner of New Seasons Market, told The Portland Oregonian that Mr. Savage did "his best to take apart the fabric of our society and to attack American values." In 2003, MSNBC fired Mr. Savage after he told a caller he assumed was gay to "get AIDS and die." He continues to employ a similar tone on his syndicated radio show. On www.rockstar69.com, Mr....

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Bankrupt grocery chain Winn-Dixie said Tuesday it would close about a third of its 913 stores and cut 22,000 jobs as part of a plan to restructure and emerge from bankruptcy. The job cuts represent about 28 percent of Winn-Dixie's total work force. The cuts will affect stores as well as corporate offices, the company said in a statement. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based supermarket chain said it's closing or selling 326 stores to focus on its most profitable markets. "Creating a smaller, but more profitable store base will best position Winn-Dixie for long-term financial health and a...

Madison, say hello to Trader Joe's. The specialty chain grocer has signed a lease for the first-floor space at Monroe Commons, sources close to the deal said. Trader Joe's will not confirm that it has signed the lease, and developer Monroe Neighbors LLC was not available for comment today, but word about the deal has been rapidly making its way around the neighborhood. "I'm very pleased that it's Trader Joe's," said Monroe Street retailer and neighborhood resident Carol "Orange" Schroeder. "It will do well in the neighborhood." There has been speculation about Trader Joe's seeking to bring a store to...

For folks who remember the southern California grocery chain strike last year, a key to the grocers breaking the strike was a revenue sharing deal between the big chains-- thereby preventing the unions from easily reaching settlement with any of the firms individually. Sounds a lot like corporate collusion that should be barred by antitrust law, doesn't it? And yesterday, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit by the California Attorney General alleging antitrust violations to move forward. U.S. District Judge George H. King in Los Angeles wrote in his decision that the mutual-aid deal was "not protected from potential antitrust...

A solid majority of Bay Area grocery workers approved a three-year contract with major supermarkets, choosing a concessionary deal over a potentially fruitless strike. Sixty-four percent of food clerks and sixty-two percent of meatcutters voted in favor of the agreement, which affects 20,000 workers from the Oregon border to King City. Most local employees and union officials in private characterized the contract as a blow to labor. It will boost health care costs and prolong pay raises for new workers. But few believed the regional coalition of eight United Food and Commercial Workers locals could secure much more. The grocers'...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Three major grocers and the labor unions representing workers in hundreds of stores in the Bay Area have agreed to a new contract, ending months of discord and avoiding another costly supermarket strike in California. The tentative truce, announced Monday, comes nearly 11 months after the same three grocers -- Kroger Co., Albertson's Inc. and Safeway Inc. -- settled a prolonged Southern California strike that left deep financial scars. The contract, affecting about 30,000 workers, includes compromises by both sides, said Ron Lind, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The deal doesn't...

LOS ANGELES – Supermarket operators involved in a 4-month-old strike-lockout with Southern California grocery clerks rejected an offer from the workers' union Wednesday to have its members return to work immediately if the markets would agree to binding arbitration. In a joint statement issued shortly after union officials announced their offer, Albertsons Inc., Kroger Co. and Safeway Inc. rejected the union's proposal, calling it an effort to "shift the focus" away from the union's "inability" to negotiate a settlement. "Labor disputes are resolved by face-to-face negotiations with people familiar with the issues," the companies' statement said. "Only the parties to...

Striking grocery clerks resumed picketing at selected Ralphs stores in Los Angeles, and will set up lines at other Ralphs markets in Orange County on Sunday, a union official said Thursday. "Picket lines are going back at some Ralphs -- not all Ralphs" in the Los Angeles area, Barbara Maynard said on behalf of United Food and Commercial Workers Locals 770 and 1442. "And in Orange County they're putting them up at quite a few Ralphs," Maynard said. Ellen Anreder, who represents a UFCW local in Orange County, said those lines will be put up on Sunday. Maynard said "here...

Walk down any aisle in a major supermarket and look at the products on the shelves. If you wonder how they got there, it wasn't random luck, a clerk's decision or even the invisible hand of the free market system. Food product manufacturers pay major supermarket chains slotting fees to guarantee space on store shelves. They pay even more to make sure their products are visible and easily accessible to shoppers. The Federal Trade Comission estimates that these fees amount to as much as $9 billion annually for the industry, of which the three companies involved in the Southern California...

POSTED: 7:06 a.m. PST November 10, 2003 UPDATED: 10:08 a.m. PST November 10, 2003 LOS ANGELES -- Several men, some brandishing bats, confronted picketers outside a strike-bound Albertsons market in Laguna Niguel, Calif., sending a 21-year-old man to the hospital, authorities said Monday. Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said five males showed up outside the market at 30241 Golden Lantern St. about 10:20 p.m. Sunday and taunted the strikers, challenging them to fight. Three of them carried bats and began beating a 21-year-old striker, Amormino said, adding that the assailants fled when a security guard fired shots in...

ST. LOUIS (AP) - More than 10,000 union grocery workers headed back to work after agreeing to a new contract Friday, ending a 3 1/2-week strike and lockout at the region's three largest supermarket chains. The agreement, reached Wednesday with the help of a federal mediator, was approved 4,174 to 945, well over the required simple majority. "Go back to work," Bob Kelley, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 655, shouted to cheering members. Two other union walkouts at grocery chains continued, one in Southern California and the other covering stores in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. Friday's...

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