After a protest at one of its Texas stores, Whole Foods says it will no longer sell products made using a prison labor program. The company has sold tilapia and goat cheese produced through a Colorado inmate program at some stores since 2011, and now plans to have the products out of stores by April 2016 or sooner. [More]
grocery stores
Walmart Officially Launching Online Grocery Pickup With Expansion To More Cities
By 9.29.15
After testing the concept for months, Walmart plans to offer more shoppers the opportunity to order their groceries online and pick them up at the store later. [More]
Whole Foods Cutting 1,500 Jobs In Order To Offer Customers Lower Prices
By 9.28.15
Your next shopping trip to Whole Foods may come with a bit less interaction with employees, as the health food chain said Monday that it would be eliminating approximately 1,500 jobs in order to offer lower prices for its goods. [More]
Man Stuffs Box Of Raspberry Cookies Down His Pants, Heads To Grocery Checkout
By 9.14.15
What is the impulse that leads people to say, “I would like to steal this item from this store, and I’m going to do it by stuffing it down my pants”? Why does it always happen with food? All we know is that it has happened again, this time with a grocery shopper caught with raspberry cookies down his pants. [More]
90,000 Pounds Of Johnsonville Grillers Recalled Because Pieces Of Metal In Your Pork Can Ruin The Barbecue
By 9.3.15
If your Labor Day plans included throwing a few pre-made pork burgers on the grill you might want to check your brand of choice. That’s because, just in time for the holiday weekend, Johnsonville announced a recall of pork patties that may contain decidedly untasty metal fragments. [More]
A&P Issues Layoff Notices To All Store Employees, Still Plans To Sell Stores
By 8.12.15
When layoffs are coming within 60 days, federal law requires employers to notify employees and their state labor department. An industry publication reports that yesterday, the venerable and bankrupt grocery chain A&P issued these layoff notifications, called Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices, to employees at all of their stores. However, most of the stores remain on the market, and A&P hopes to sell them to competitors soon. [More]
Whole Foods Announces Five Cities Where It’s Opening Cheaper Stores
By 7.31.15
Back in May, Whole Foods announced it’d be making a play for that coveted category of customers, the almighty millennials, by launching a new line of lower-cost stores. The company has now revealed which cities will see those first cheaper stores. [More]
Oh Great, Here’s Another Halloween Candy Display In July
By 7.27.15
Just in case you thought it might be some kind of fluke that Walgreens had their Halloween candy out on July 21, we assure you that Walgreens isn’t alone in this sort of wacky midsummer merchandising. Nope: John sent along this photo taken in a Giant Eagle store of a display of seasonally-themed M&Ms and Snickers bars. [More]
Historic A&P Grocery Chain Files For Bankruptcy Again, Plans To Sell Or Close Locations
By 7.20.15
For the second time in five years, 156-year-old grocery store operator Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P) filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, laying out plans to sell off or close many of its stores. [More]
FDA Giving Businesses Another Year To Comply With Rules Requiring Calorie Counts On Menus
By 7.9.15
Restaurants and other businesses that were living under a deadline to include calorie counts on menus and displays will get a bit of wiggle room to comply with the rule passed by the Food and Drug Administration last fall. The agency now says food purveyors will have another year to get their acts together, extending the previous deadline from Dec. 1, 2015 to Dec. 1, 2016. [More]
Hawaii Becomes First State To Ban Plastic Bags At Grocery Stores
By 7.2.15 — Updated: 12.30.16
While some cities in the U.S. have passed laws that ban plastic bags at grocery stores, Hawaii now stands alone as the first and only state that prohibits supermarkets from handing out the non-biodegradable carriers at the checkout. [More]
Whole Foods CEOs Admit To “Unintentional” Overcharging
By 7.2.15
In 2014, California regulators caught Whole Foods overcharging customers, and things have only gotten worse for the upscale grocery store chain, which is currently under investigation for similar allegations in New York (where it also faces a civil suit from customers). That’s why Whole Foods’ co-CEOs issued a joint, heavily qualified, mea culpa about the situation. [More]
Customer Sues Whole Foods Over Alleged Overcharging In NYC
By 6.26.15
New York City officials accused Whole Foods of overcharging customers in the “the worst case of mislabeling” investigators have seen, a man filed a lawsuit against the upscale food purveyor. He’s seeking damages because he claims he bought several mispriced packages at the stores over the last three years. [More]
European Parent Companies Of Hannaford, Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Giant, And Peapod To Merge
By 6.24.15
You may not recognize the names Ahold and Delhaize, but you probably recognize some of the grocery brands that they own. Delhaize is the parent company of Hannaford and Food Lion, and Ahold is the parent company of U.S. chains Stop & Shop and Giant, as well as the online grocery delivery company Peapod. If regulators approve, the two companies will merge, and the transaction will become final in the middle of next year. [More]
NYC Officials Investigating Whole Foods For Allegedly Overcharging On Pre-Packaged Goods
By 6.24.15
After paying $800,000 in California last fall to settle allegations it was overcharging its customers, Whole Foods is once again in hot water for possibly overcharging customers, this time in New York City. [More]
Could Automated Grocery Stores Be In Our Future?
By 6.18.15
Do future trips to the supermarket involve no lines, no human interaction and no endlessly searching the aisles to check items off your list? They might, and residents of Iowa could be the first to test out what is essentially an ATM-like grocery store. [More]
Whole Foods Naming New Line Of Stores After Its “365” Brand
By 6.11.15
If you have been waiting on the very edge of your seat to find out what Whole Foods would be branding its new line of smaller stores with lower prices, today is your day. After filing various trademark names to throw everyone off, the company says it’ll be calling the chain “365 by Whole Foods Market.” [More]
Grocery Store Marks Up Chicken, Not Sure How ‘Clearance’ Works
By 5.8.15
Here is how it works when something has been on the shelf for a while and you want to get rid of it. You lower the price slightly to entice someone to buy it, and…um, that should be about it. Unless you are grocer Ingles. Then putting something on clearance means raising the price per pound but decreasing the weight, decreasing the price slightly but not making anyone want to buy the chicken. [More]
