Consumers in eight additional cities will soon be able to order their groceries online and head to their local Walmart to pick them up later. Walmart announced Wednesday that it would expand its free online grocery pickup option — which officially launched in October — to Kansas City; Boise, ID; Richmond and Virginia Beach, VA; Austin; Provo, UT; Daphne, AL; and Charleston, SC, as well as double the number of stores that take part in the service in Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta. To use the service, customers simply place their orders online, pick a time to pick up their items, drive to the store, park in a designated spot, and call a special phone number. An associate then brings the goods straight to their trunk. [Walmart] [More]
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Walmart Expands Grocery Pickup Option To Eight Additional Cities, Doubles Effort In Others
By 4.13.16
Minneapolis Council Votes To Ban Plastic Bags At Store Checkouts, Impose Paper Bag Fee
By 4.1.16
Better keep your pile of reusable shopping bags close at hand, Minneapolis residents: the city’s council just voted to ban all plastic bags from store checkouts and impose a fee on customers who opt to get a paper bag instead of bringing their own carriers. [More]
Fresh Market Sold To Private Equity Firm, Apollo Global, For $1.36B
By 3.14.16
Specialty grocery chain Fresh Market is starting the week with a new owner: Apollo Management Group agreed to acquire the chain for about $1.36 billion in cash over the weekend. [More]
SUV Turns Into Flying Car, Uses Roof Of Giant Eagle Supermarket As Crash-Landing Spot
By 3.8.16
While we haven’t reached the flying-car future of The Jetsons quite yet, that didn’t stop one SUV from crash-landing on the roof of a Giant Eagle supermarket. [More]
Another Day, Another Company Switching To Cage-Free Eggs: This Time, It’s Kroger
By 3.3.16
Hot on the heels of Albertsons Companies’ announcement that it will only source eggs from cage-free hens in all its various grocery store brands by 2025, including Albertsons and Safeway, Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the country, says it’s doing the same thing, in the same timeframe. [More]
Parent Company Of Albertsons, Safeway, Other Grocery Stores Pledges To Source Only Cage-Free Eggs By 2025
By 3.1.16
The cage-free eggs bandwagon has been rolling around the U.S. for some time now, and it shows no signs of stopping yet. Today, the parent company of Albertsons, Safeway, and other grocery chains announced that it will be working with suppliers to achieve a goal of sourcing only eggs from cage-free hens by 2025. [More]
Oregon Police Thank “Anonymous Shopping Cart Guy” For Tripping Up Fleeing Suspect
By 2.29.16
Some heroes wear capes and have an arsenal of tools to fight crime hanging from their fancy utility belts. Other heroes, of the everyday sort, have different weapons at their disposal. To wit: one brave, mysterious shopper known only as “anonymous shopping cart guy” sacrificed his groceries to stop a fleeing suspect in Portland, OR. [More]
Walmart Faces Lawsuit For Selling Parmesan Cheese With Wood Pulp Filler
By 2.24.16
With federal regulators now cracking down on Parmesan cheese products that contain wood pulp and other fillers, it was just a mater of time before the first lawsuit was filed against a retailer selling its grated cheese product as “100% Parmesan.” [More]
Jewel-Osco Pulls House Brand Of Grated Cheese Over Wood Pulp Concerns
By 2.19.16
As reports spread of federal regulators cracking down on Parmesan cheese products that contain a bunch of a wood pulp and other fillers, one national grocery chain says it’s pulling its house brand of grated cheese from shelves amid concerns about the food additive. [More]
Whole Foods’ New 365 Stores Might Include Tattoo Parlors Because Millennials
By 2.11.16
Everyone knows how annoying it is when all you want is a bunch of carrots, some celery, crusty bread, and body art that will never come off your skin without an expensive, painful removal process, and you just can’t find a one-stop shop for it all. Here comes Whole Foods with its new “365 by Whole Foods Market” stores, which may include in-house tattoo parlors, because that makes complete and total sense. [More]
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Kroger Wants Alcohol Companies To Pick Up The Tab For Its New Booze Organization Plan
By 1.29.16
After decades of sticking with its organization system in stores, Kroger has a new plan for how it decides which booze brands go on which shelf, and how prominently each one is displayed. Instead of relying on “category captains” from big names like Anheuser-Busch InBev and Diageo to suggest how wine, liquor, and beer are organized in stores, the grocer wants alcohol companies to pay a privately held distributor to make those display decisions. [More]
Report: Grocers Failing In Commitment To Open New Stores In “Food Deserts”
By 12.7.15
In 2011, many of the nation’s largest food retailers committed to opening or expanding 1,500 grocery or convenience stores in and around neighborhoods without supermarkets by 2016, with the aim of providing healthier options for consumers. However, a new analysis of the four-year progress for the initiative found that only a fraction of these companies have lived up to their promise. [More]
Walmart Shoppers Surprised To See Flock Of Snacking Birds Camped Out In Store’s Meat Section
By 12.1.15
Of all the places one would expect to see a flock of birds settled down for a group snack, the meat display at your local grocery store is probably pretty far down on the list. To that end, Walmart shoppers in Massachusetts were understandably surprised over the weekend, when at least two customers snapped video footage of a group of live fowl pecking away at packages of red meat. [More]
Kroger Buys Midwest Grocer Roundy’s For $800M
By 11.11.15
The merger bug has been hitting the supermarket aisle for several years now, and it continued Wednesday as Kroger announced it would buy midwest grocery chain Roundy’s – the owner of Pick ‘n Save – for a cool $800 million. [More]
Grocery Chain HEB Giving 15% Of Company’s Shares To 55,000 Employees
By 11.2.15
While the wage fight roars on at retailers around the country, one company is doing something unusual for the industry: regional grocery chain HEB is bestowing a major perk on about 55,000 of its full-time employees with the gift of an equity stake in the business. [More]
A&P Brand Names And Customer Data Are Up For Auction
By 10.23.15
If you’ve always wanted to own the brand name of a venerable but defunct supermarket company, now is your opportunity. After A&P filed for bankruptcy for the second time in five years and the last time ever, the company is getting rid of the last of its assets. The leases and locations of individual stores were sold off to rival grocery chains, and now what’s left are brands, customer names, and e-mail addresses. [More]
West Coast Grocery Chain Fresh & Easy Closing All Stores
By 10.22.15
After selling off 50 stores earlier this year and pledging to redesign the rest, West Coast grocery chain Fresh & Easy has decided to throw in the towel: after eight years in the supermarket scene, the company says it will close all 97 remaining stores, laying off all its 3,000 employees in the process. [More]
Kroger Gets Rid Of Unrefrigerated Caramel Apples On Sticks Just To Be Sure
By 10.16.15
Is it possible that the caramel apples sitting on store shelves right now have been contaminated with bacteria, made worse because the fruits are impaled on sticks and coated with candy? The many grocery brands owned by Kroger aren’t taking any chances, and announced that they’re getting rid of all unrefrigerated caramel apples. [More]
