Kroger is bringing wines from around the world to its shoppers in the U.S. with its annual Winter Wine Box Celebration Pack. The collection will include 24 6.3-ounce bottles of wine and will be available at select Kroger banner stores beginning Oct. 9.

The wines, exclusive to Kroger, hail from Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, the Republic of North Macedonia, South Africa and Spain. The Winter Wine Box is priced at $69.99 and will be available to purchase in-store and online. 

"We have specially curated 24 exquisite wines for our customers this season, and we can't wait for them to be enjoyed," said Barry Craft, Kroger's VP of arocery. "There's something for everyone – reds, whites, rosé and sparkling varieties from around the world – and as customers try the curation, they can learn more about a prized varietal or world-renowned growing region each day."

Serving 60 million households annually nationwide through a digital shopping experience, and almost 2,800 retail food stores under a variety of banner names, Cincinnati-based Kroger is No. 4 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.

United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) has named the winner of the Pitch Slam competition, presented by UNFI UpNext, at the distributor’s Natural Winter show, which took place Oct. 4-5 in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay. Viv is an earth-friendly, toxin-free period care brand based in Boston.

“Viv is newer to retail, as we started off as a direct-to-consumer brand,” said Viv CEO and founder Katie Diasti. “Through the UpNext program, UNFI has helped give us the extra support and knowledge we needed to bring a facelift to the period care aisle. Our goal at Pitch Slam was to be bold, vibrant and exciting, and it was fun to see all the retailers and those in the audience react to our story.” 

The UNFI UpNext team discovers and mentors emerging brands, guiding their path to growth while helping deliver UNFI customers a regionally sourced, differentiated product mix. The Pitch Slam has UpNext suppliers compete against each other in a friendly, fun elevator pitch-style contest.

Throughout the two-day Natural Winter Show, more than 2,000 UNFI customer attendees connected with the company’s extensive network of suppliers offering a wide-ranging assortment across grocery, fresh, organic and specialty departments. The event also featured UNFI’s Professional Services offerings, which aim to drive traffic, save time and money, and enhance the shopping experience.

Throughout the year, UNFI hosts 10,000-plus registered customer attendees at its four major events.

Providence, R.I.-based UNFI delivers a wide variety of products to more than 30,000 customer locations throughout North America, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, e-commerce retailers and foodservice customers. The largest publicly traded grocery distributor in America, the company is No. 49 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.

Dom's Kitchen & Market, which recently revealed a Nov. 1 opening date for its second location in Chicago, is also expanding its digital footprint. The retailer is rolling out a new direct delivery platform and app called Dom’s Go. 

Shoppers within a five-mile radius of the current store at 2730 N. Halsted can now access the app on the Dom’s website and via Apple’s App Store or the Google Play Store. Curbside pickup and delivery are available, with free delivery for orders over $150.

In addition to buying grocery items, users can order from Dom’s in-house prepared foods areas, including The Brew, Kitchen and Market. The retailer offers a wide range of heat-and-eat and ready-to-eat offerings, from artisan pizza to plant-based choices.

“The Dom’s Go app is unique because it brings three apps in one: a coffee shop app, a fast casual restaurant app and a grocery store app. You can order your coffee for express pickup or delivery, conveniently order your meals, and/or choose among 8,000-plus items available in our store – all from a single mobile app and online store,” said Marcio Ribeiro, chief digital and information officer.

According to co-CEO Bob Mariano, the new e-comm platform exemplifies the company’s approach to meeting shoppers’ needs.“Service is essential to the Dom’s experience both in-store and online. What makes Dom’s Go unique is that our in-house e-commerce team personally selects items for our customers. It is important to us to maintain a close relationship with our customers while they shop online, so our team includes hand-written notes and contacts customers directly to make sure they get every order right. Dom’s is and always will be customer-centric,” Mariano explained.

As Dom’s Kitchen launches the new e-comm service, it is offering a $10 savings on orders of $50 or more with the code “2DOMGOOD.”

Avery Dennison Corp. has partnered with SAP on an original equipment manufacturer agreement. The agreement allows Avery Dennison to integrate SAP Analytics Cloud, a SAP Business Technology Platform product, into its atma.io connected product cloud to help retailers address food waste.

Through this partnership, businesses that use SAP technologies can access item-level insights from atma.io for their products from manufacturing to distribution to shelf. The transparency provides unique supply chain information, enabling expiration date management and automation.

[Read more: "UN Spotlights Food Loss and Waste"]

Driving these efficiencies is item-level data delivered to the SAP Analytics Cloud dashboard via atma.io and products tagged with unique digital ID technology by Avery Dennison, including RFID. It means that retailers can experience accurate and timely analysis enabling them to automate food expiration management at the store. Grocers can also go deeper into their supply chain and implement “dwell time” measurement to boost the speed with which items move through warehouses and distribution centers so they can arrive in stores with longer shelf lives.

The new partnership will benefit omnichannel retail and can help retailers with click-and-collect, as well as buy online, pick up in store and home delivery – where sending and delivering products with the right expiration date has been a challenge. It can also help during product recalls. 

Max Winograd, VP, connected products at Mentor, Ohio-based Avery Dennison Smartrac, comments: “Accurate real-time supply chain management is more important than ever, and we’re pleased to partner with SAP to help businesses manage their supply chain operations. Food waste is a global problem, impacting people, planet and profits, and we’re greatly encouraged by the remarkable results digital ID technology and atma.io has already achieved with some of our existing retail customers, and look forward to working with SAP so that more can reap these benefits.”

Thermo King, a provider of transport temperature-control solutions, has completed initial testing of its evolve electric trailer with Walmart and Loblaws, as well as with Martin Brower, a Rosemont, Ill.-based supply chain solutions provider for restaurants around the world. During more than 2,500 hours of operation, Thermo King said that the battery-powered refrigerated trailer unit delivered excellent performance, ensuring high-quality climate control to keep food and other goods fresh. With zero direct emissions, Thermo King’s electric trailer technology can help to significantly decarbonize the cold chain.

“With thousands of refrigerated trailers using diesel fuel today, we have the ability to make a meaningful difference when it comes to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Fernando Cortes, SVP of transportation, Walmart U.S. “We were pleased to work with Thermo King on the testing of our first-ever refrigerated trailer operated primarily on battery electricity in the U.S. as we look for solutions to achieve zero emissions by 2040.”

“By partnering with our customers, we can help accelerate the industry’s transformation to electrification by applying valuable insights from data collected during these trials,” noted Karin De Bondt, president of Minneapolis-based Thermo King Americas. “With more than 2,500 hours of operation, the learnings bring us closer to a commercialized all-electric trailer unit, help our customers prepare their operations, and ultimately, together we can advance the industry forward.”

Thermo King – by Trane Technologies, a global climate innovator – has been providing transport temperature-control solutions for a variety of applications, including trailers, truck bodies, buses, air, shipboard containers and railway cars, since 1938.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart U.S. is No. 1 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. Brampton, Ontario-based Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is No. 11 on The PG 100. 

A new Redner's Fresh Market is slated to open next month in Lewes, Del. The family-run, employee-owned Redner’s Markets, Inc. is planning a Nov. 17 grand opening for the latest store at 12001 Old Vine Blvd., built within a mixed-use development.

Spanning 49,000 square feet, the market will stock more than 45,000 items, including prepared and fresh foods that have become a Redner’s hallmark. Self-checkout areas will be available for shopping convenience, and a fuel kiosk is onsite as well.   

[Read more: "Reinventing Redner’s"]

The Lewes site – which was delayed for a bit during the pandemic – is the 45th Redner’s store. Based in Reading, Pa., the grocer operates Redner’s Markets and Redner’s Fresh Market stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware and also runs 21 quick shops in the region. The independent chain was founded more than 52 years ago.