Free Republic

Across the country, cities are joining the latest environmental trend – banning plastic grocery bags. Concerned about the amount of plastic that reaches our oceans and the impact on wildlife, communities have decided that banning the bags is a simple and environmentally responsible approach. But is it? What does the science say? The evidence points to the fact that banning the bags may actually be a net negative for the environment, yielding little benefit to wildlife while significantly increasing carbon emissions and other environmental impacts. Advocates of banning plastic grocery bags often cite impacts on marine life and mammals, but...

Sometime last year, Procter & Gamble Co. was throwing around some crazy ideas of creating a grocery aisle specifically for men, apparently a brand new breed of consumers walking around grocery stores. The idea was to give the lonely male lost in a supermarket a fun shopping experience, putting everything a man's man would need in one place. And New York City's Westside Market has gone and done just that. "People rarely cater to men in the supermarket," COO Ian Joskowitz told us over the phone. "So I thought let’s do something fun, get people talking, something guys would like....

Americans spend $80 billion each year financing food stamps for the poor, but the country has no idea where or how the money is spent. Food stamps can be spent on goods ranging from candy to steak and are accepted at retailers from gas stations that primarily sell potato chips to fried-chicken restaurants. And as the amount spent on food stamps has more than doubled in recent years, the amount of food stamps laundered into cash has increased dramatically, government statistics show. As a result, fraud is hard to track and the efficacy of the massive program is impossible to...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon investigators have traced an outbreak of norovirus to a reusable grocery bag that members of a Beaverton girls' soccer team passed around when they shared cookies. The soccer team of 13- and 14-year-olds traveled to Seattle for a weekend tournament in October 2010.

Oregon public health officials have traced a nasty outbreak of norovirus infections in a group of soccer players to an unlikely source: a reusable grocery bag contaminated with what some experts are calling “the perfect pathogens.” The incident is raising questions, once again, about the cleanliness of the portable shopping bags that many consumers use to avoid the paper vs. plastic impact on the environment. “We wash our clothes when they’re dirty; we should wash our bags, too,” said Kimberly K. Repp, an epidemiologist with the Washington County Department of Health and Human Services in Hillsboro, Ore. Her work is...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Central Florida supermarket chain is about to close almost all of its local stores. It's part of a move by Albertson's to end the majority of its operations in the state. For the last year or so, Albertson's has been shrinking the number of stores it operates in Florida. In Central Florida, six more stores are going to close in the next few weeks. Only a store in Altamonte Springs will remain open. Albertson's says the Florida market is not good for it, and with fuel and utility costs being what they are, it's closing all...

NEWPORT NEWS — Kelvin White sometimes gets uncomfortable when strangers approach on the street. But that is not nearly as bad as the dreams he has almost nightly of people out to kill him. Almost four months after White tackled a man accused of posing as an FBI agent in a robbery at Food Lion at Newmarket Square in Hampton and was shot by another man, he is still suffering from excruciating pain from the bullet that shattered his right leg.

All Food Lion stores on the First Coast, including a dozen in Jacksonville, are closing, company officials announced Wednesday night. The stores will be closed within 30 days, the company said. Stores in Clay, St. Johns, Nassau, Baker and Alachua counties are also closing. In addition, the Food Lion in Waycross is among the Georgia stores slated to be closed. The company will convert its Food Lion in Lake City to a Harveys store. All of the other stores in Florida are closing.

It's been a ticket to the middle class, no college degree required, for generations of Sacramentans: a job at Raley's or another unionized supermarket.Now unrelenting pressure from nonunion grocers such as Wal-Mart threatens to change that.With their labor contracts up for renewal, Northern California's big unionized grocery chains – Safeway, Raley's and Save Mart – are seeking wage and benefit concessions from 60,000 workers in the Central Valley and Bay Area. The grocers say they need to ratchet down labor costs, particularly health insurance, to compete with the likes of Wal-Mart, Target and newcomer Fresh & Easy. They say their...

I’ve been shopping at Meijer most of my life — in Flint, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and now Midland. As a student at Eastern Michigan University, a group of friends and I would occasionally go to Meijer Thrifty Acres — we called it Meijer Fifty Acres — at midnight or 1 a.m. to stock up on Ramen noodles, Lucky Charms, Doritos, Mt. Dew, some socks, a taillight for the raggedy Chevette and a tropical fish for the aquarium. They indeed had everything you needed under one roof. The retail chain of what are now known as “hypermarkets” originated in Greenville, Mich.,...

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A grocery store security guard was fired after he told the father of a 4-year-old girl that she would face criminal charges for eating from a dried fruit package, a TV station reported. The child's mother, Alissa Jones, said the father wasn't looking when the girl grabbed the package, ate a few pieces of fruit then returned it to a shelf at a Safeway store in Everett, Wash., KOMO reported Wednesday. Safeway previously faced widespread criticism when a Honolulu couple were arrested over stolen sandwiches and had their 2-year-old daughter taken from them briefly by state...

There’s a supermarket anomaly near my home. Two supermarkets, a block apart: King Soopers (a Kroger store) and Safeway. In my town, everybody shops at King Soopers. Safeway is deserted. There are literally more employees than customers. Consequently, I get tremendous prices at Safeway, including a large percentage of my groceries at 50% off. What’s up with that? For some reason, Safeway has made the corporate decision to keep the store open as a loss leader. Curious. They stock all the normal foods, but then they have to get the food out of the store quickly at 50% off while...

SAN FRANCISCO —Melody Studebaker stands solemnly outside the Fort Mason Safeway grocery store, along side her long term partner, Henrietta... Studebaker, 62, and her partner, 60, are picketing the Safeway store this beautiful morning to draw attention to a most ugly practice within it. After a lifetime of witnessing the use of grocery store checkout line dividers, Strudebaker and her partner have had enough...

<p>One of the nation's major grocery store chains is eliminating self-checkout lanes in an effort to encourage more human contact with its customers.</p> <p>Albertsons LLC, which operates 217 stores in seven Western and Southern states, will eliminate all self-checkout lanes in the 100 stores that have them and will replace them with standard or express lanes, according to published reports.</p>

The meats were like a bad joke gone bad. $7-10 for a small package of chicken breasts. I got enough food for a week and it was $107. The cashier lady told me some woman (when she noticed) milk at $4 a gallon asked if there was s milk shortage. Are people this stupid? I am truly afraid for this country in so many ways and as the cashier lady said she told the ditz lady it will get far worse before it gets better. And the cashier was in her 20's and she figured this out- so there is...

Wal-Mart tests online grocery sales, home delivery in San Jose, aims to compete with Amazon BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Saturday that it is testing home grocery delivery in San Jose, Calif., as the world's largest retailer ratchets up competition with online retailer Amazon.com Inc. With the new "Walmart To Go," customers can order up groceries, health and beauty products such as soap, shampoo and over-the-counter medicines, and household supplies like paper towels and laundry detergent from the company's website. Wal-Mart will then drive the goods over to customers' homes at their time of choice.

Vanity head up: This weekend one of the Discount club stores is having an open house - a good opportunity to stock up without a paper trail. “Spring Taste of Sam’s Club Open House is coming, 4/15-4/17, each day 11am-6pm. No non-Member upcharges during this event, so bring a friend! “ Sometimes it’s useful to buy in bulk, but typically you need to have a membership – this is one occasion when you can get those member prices, without letting everyone know you’re prepping.

http://cerealcouponsonline.blogspot.com/ Clipping cereal coupons is a great way to save money, but not everyone can find the time for it. For those of you that want to conveniently print coupons online. The breakfast cereal industry has gross profit margins of 40-45%, 90% penetration in some markets,and steady and continued growth throughout its history.Whether you love flakes, pops, or granola you can always find great money-saving coupons, right here. Stock your pantry with your favorite name brand cereals and enjoy a tasty breakfast daily. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day after all. Households that consume cereal regularly will...

The typical modern American supermarket stocks 48,000 items, each battling for precious shelf space. How do they get there? Why are they arranged the way they are? Did you know that some stores use heat maps to track which aisles you walk down — and which ones you don't? Or that they put the milk at the end of the aisle so you're forced to pass a hundred other items on your way to get it? It's all done to gain an edge in a cutthroat business built on razor-thin margins. CNBC’s Tyler Mathisen goes behind the scenes for a...

While grocery shopping a few weeks ago, I ran across this sign in the parking lot of a well-known grocery store: “Reserved Parking For Low Emissions and Fuel Efficient Hybrid Vehicles.” As can be expected, the sign designated a spot near the entrance of the store, right next to the handicapped spots.