U.S. tennis star Serena Williams is part of the team that developed Sleep Sheets® dissolvable strips, a new natural sleep aid designed to support one’s natural sleep cycle. Williams, who has struggled sleeping for years, worked with scientists and Sheets Brand partners to develop a product with only natural active ingredients. Each Sleep Sheet contains […]
Author Archives: Lorrie Griffith

Lorrie began covering the supermarket and foodservice industries at Shelby Publishing in 1988, an English major fresh out of the University of Georgia. She started as an editorial assistant and proofreader—and, in spite of herself, she still proofreads everything, everywhere. Over more than three decades with Shelby, she held a variety of editorial roles. After a detour into business development, she rejoined Shelby in June 2024. “It’s good to be back covering the greatest industry in the world,” she says.
Ga. Peach Season Launches with ‘Sweet’ New Campaign
Sweet Georgia Peaches soon will arrive in supermarkets, heralding the growing season that runs from mid-May to mid-August. This year, consumers in Georgia and Florida will be greeted with an updated public relations, advertising and social media campaign featuring the catchphrase, “Georgia Peaches, All Kinds of Sweet.” “A recent Perishables Group survey suggests that over […]
Former Fleming Chief Dies At 82
Elwyn Dean Werries, who spent nearly 40 years with grocery wholesaler Fleming Cos., died April 25 following a period of declining health. He was 82. Werries was born May 8, 1929, in Tescott, Kan. At the age of eight he began his business career at his Uncle Will’s grocery store in Tescott. He graduated high […]
Team ShelbyUSA: A Day in the Life
Rising at 5 a.m. and going through a regimen of medications and treatments before school begins a day in the life of Shelby Klug. To her, it’s not a big deal, just something she has to do, has had to do for nearly a dozen years now. “I love getting up early. I’m very weird […]
BeaconUnited Introduces Itself Out West
BeaconUnited™, the new venture comprised of eight leading U.S. food brokers, continued its dialogue with manufacturers during its Aug. 25 West Coast kickoff in San Ramon, Calif., hosted by Co-Sales Co. Don Cox, CEO of Co-Sales, especially appreciated one of the event’s core points that put the grocer/broker/manufacturer relationship in as simple terms as possible: […]
FISMC Fêtes Bristol Farms
The Food Industries Sales Managers’ Club of Los Angeles (FISMC) met in mid-September at the Summit House Restaurant in Fullerton to honor local supermarket chain Bristol Farms. Kevin Davis, chairman, president and CEO of Bristol Farms, went over his company’s history. Bristol Farms was acquired by Albertsons in 2004; Supervalu acquired Albertsons in 2006 and […]
Leadership Is More About Your Staff Than You
FMI’s Future Connect did what a valuable conference should do—make you think about your work, and your life, in new ways.
Sarasin Outlines Grocery Trends 2011
The Shelby Report’s editor, Lorrie Griffith, and Terrie Ellerbee, associate editor, are in Dallas attending Future Connect 2011. We are posting articles live from the conference. By Lorrie Griffith/editor FMI Future Connect 2011 DALLAS–Trust was a key theme in remarks made by Leslie G. Sarasin, president and CEO of the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), covering […]
Chain’s Outreach to Core Customers Pays Off
It is a marketing truth that it requires a higher level of investment, as well as more effort, to attract a new customer than to keep one you already have. A direct marketing test run by South Carolina’s BI-LO supermarket chain earlier this year again proves that investing money to engage, excite and show you […]
Tell Me—Do You Welcome Extreme Couponers?
I’ve wanted to ask a question of our retailer readers for some time now, and for reasons I will explain in a moment, I am posing it now: Do you have major coupon users that shop your store, and if so, do you welcome them or wish they would shop somewhere else? I would love […]
