Grocery Industry News: Retail & Supply Chain Updates
Posted in, Equipment & Technology, Industry News, Marketing News, Midwest, Suppliers

Michigan Marketing Company Creates Recipe Videos With Price Chopper

ViMax Media LLC, a Michigan-based food marketing agency, is teaming with New York-based Price Chopper to create custom recipe videos. They also will produce a series of specialty seasonal videos that highlight Price Chopper brands and prepared foods and custom Pinterest graphics that will be integrated with the Price Chopper video marketing campaign. The videos […]

Posted in, Center Store, Industry News, Marketing News, Merchandising News, Southwest, Sustainability News

Steamboat Springs Location Wins Tom’s, Natural Grocers Contest

The Natural Grocers store in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, won Tom’s of Maine’s “Garbage to Green” promotion, a contest encouraging each of the chain’s 90 locations to reuse empty Tom’s of Maine products and reduce the amount of waste sent to local landfills. Participants created original Tom’s of Maine end cap displays incorporating the empty natural […]

Posted in, Equipment & Technology, Online Grocery Technology, West

Unified Grocers Launches CART Portal

Wholesaler Unified Grocers has launched the CART platform in partnership with CART (the Center for Advancing Retail & Technology) at advancingretail.org/unified, a new service for member retailers to find, learn about and connect with the best Unified-recommended solutions for their business. The CART portal also includes a large and growing number of resources, including case […]

Posted in, Center Store, Frozen Food, Perishables, Southwest, Suppliers

Blue Bell Readies For Phase Three Of Return

Blue Bell Ice Cream continues to expand its distribution following the virtual shutdown of its operations earlier this year after a recall of its products. Phase three of the Brenham, Texas-based company’s five-phase market re-entry is scheduled to begin Dec. 14. Phase three includes the remaining majority of Texas and central and southern Alabama. “We […]

Posted in, Bakery News, Dairy News, Deli News, Industry News, National

IDDBA’s ‘What’s In Store 2016’ Highlights Category Trends

“What’s in Store 2016,” the latest edition of the annual trends publication of the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association (IDDBA), and What’s in Store Online, a collection of 150 downloadable tables, as well as white papers and trends articles, are now available. With 30 years of credible reporting, What’s in Store is an essential dairy-deli-supermarket food service-bakery-cheese […]

Posted in, C-Store News, Corporate Store News, Industry News, Midwest, Suppliers

Iowa Grocery Industry Association Inducts Five Into Hall Of Fame

The Iowa Grocery Industry Association (IGIA) will honor Hy-Vee’s Tom Watson with the IGIA Retailer of the Year Award during its 22nd Annual Hall of Fame Dinner at 5 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 5, at the Veterans Memorial Community Choice Credit Union in Des Moines, Iowa. The evening’s highlights also will include awarding Bob Myers, Casey’s […]

Posted in, Center Store, Marketing News, Midwest, Suppliers

Country Hearth Breads Launches Great Holiday Get-Together Sweepstakes

St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Country Hearth breads is offering Midwest consumers the chance to win one of two $1,000 cash awards with the “Great Holiday Get-Together Sweepstakes.” Pan-O-Gold Baking Co., bakers of Country Hearth and Village Hearth breads, is sponsoring the sweepstakes open to residents age 18 and older in its Upper Midwest market area. Entries […]

Posted in, Meat/Seafood/Poultry, Perishables, Southwest

Kiolbassa Provision Co. Named A Top Workplace

Kiolbassa Provision Co. has received a 2015 Top Workplaces honor by the San Antonio Express-News. The Top Workplaces lists are based solely on the results of an employee feedback survey administered by WorkplaceDynamics, a research firm that specializes in organizational health and workplace improvement. Several aspects of workplace culture were measured, including alignment, execution and […]

Posted inLipari Foods, Executive News, Industry News, Midwest

Liras Promoted To VP Of Manufacturing At Lipari Foods

Lipari Foods has promoted Spiro Liras to VP of manufacturing, according to the company’s president and CEO, Thom Lipari. Liras joined JLM Manufacturing, a division of Lipari Foods, in 2009 as the director of manufacturing when the facility was exclusively confections packaging. JLM has since expanded its operational space multiple times, along with several acquisition […]

Posted in, Grocery News, Industry News, National

Survey: ‘Local’ Food No Longer Just A Trend To Drive Sales But Critical For Growth

The third annual A.T. Kearney survey of U.S. shoppers’ local food-buying habits finds that local food has made the leap from a “hot” consumer trend to a central growth driver for grocery retailers and restaurants. Two years ago, when A.T. Kearney conducted its first study of local food-buying habits, merely offering local food was a […]

Posted in, Marketing News, National, Produce News

PMA Teams With Group To Get Fresh Produce On Screen

In support of the produce industry’s efforts to drive demand for more fresh produce, the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) on Friday during its Fresh Summit conference in Atlanta announced a strategic alliance with the Entertainment Resource & Marketing Association (ERMA)—the association of entertainment marketing professionals—to bring fresh produce center stage through television shows, movies and […]

Posted in, Industry News, Midwest, Online Grocery Technology, Suppliers

Grocery Pickup Cincinnati To Launch Nov. 16 With Kroger

Grocery Pickup Cincinnati is set to launch on Nov. 16, pairing with the Kroger online shopping and curbside pick-up service to provide customers with pick up and home delivery of their orders. “After the announcement by Kroger that they were testing online grocery shopping, order fulfillment, and curbside pick up, we decided to hire a […]

Posted in, Executive News, Independent Store News, Industry News, National

AWG Makes Organizational Changes

A day after it announced the promotion of Jeff Pedersen to EVP of division operations, Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), based in Kansas City, Kansas, is making several organizational changes. Effective Dec. 7, Steve Arnold, EVP of merchandising, will transfer to the Oklahoma City Division to the position of SVP and division manager, reporting to Pedersen. […]

Posted in, Industry News, National, Store News

FMI Launches Crowd-Sourced Campaign To Correct Grocery Misconceptions

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) has launched a campaign aimed at correcting misconceptions in the food retail environment. Supermarket Myths. . . Busted is an online destination designed to help food retailers mitigate untruths that ultimately confuse shoppers or get perpetuated online. Sue Borra, SVP of communications and strategic planning for FMI, said of the […]

Posted in, Center Store, Grocery News, Marketing News, Midwest

Carlin O’Brien Becomes Carlin Group

Carlin O’Brien, a privately owned full-service brokerage and member of BeaconUnited, is changing its name to Carlin Group—a name change the company says better reflects the regional CPG sales and marketing agency it has become. The news comes as Carlin Group participates in this year’s National Association of Convenience Stores and the National Frozen and […]

Posted in, Equipment & Technology, Grocery Store Equipment, National

Hillphoenix Earns Fifth EPA GreenChill Award

Hillphoenix, designer and manufacturer of commercial refrigerated display cases and specialty products, refrigeration systems, integrated power distribution systems and walk-in coolers and freezers, has received a 2014-15 Achievement Award—Store Certification Excellence from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenChill Partnership program. It’s the company’s fifth GreenChill award since the program launched in 2007. For the third […]

Posted in, Frozen Food, Perishables, Southwest, Suppliers

Consumer Support Slows Expansion Of Blue Bell Market Re-Entry

Blue Bell Ice Cream will enter phase two of its five-phase market re-entry plan on Nov. 2. Phase two includes north central Texas (Dallas, Fort Worth and Waco areas) and north central and southern Oklahoma (Tulsa and Oklahoma City areas). “We have experienced tremendous consumer response and support since our return to stores on Aug. […]