Nonfoods

READING, Pa. -- The permits have been approved and ground has been broken on the first Schuylkill County Quick Shoppe, operated by Redner's Warehouse Markets based here.

SAINT-LAURENT, Que. -- The grocery banners of Provigo, Inc., based here -- Loblaws, Maxi & Cie, Maxi, Provigo, L'intermarché, Axep, and Club Entrepôt Provigo -- have joined with the Quebec Environment Foundation (QEF) to help reduce the use of plastic bags in their 456 stores throughout the province.

NEW YORK -- Bob Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International and chairman of the Advisory Board of the Global Markets Institute, will be the keynote speaker at The Daymon Worldwide Forum on May 5 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, Daymon Associates said yesterday.

SALISBURY, N.C. -- Now through April 30, all 1,215 Food Lion stores are conducting the "Food Lion for the Children" campaign to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network (CMN). Food Lion customers can participate by purchasing paper CMN balloons for $1 each.

NEW YORK -- Major demographic, lifestyle, and technological changes are creating a fertile environment for the re-invention of the food retail space, according to "The Future of Food Retailing," a new report from market research publisher Packaged Facts.

Wal-Mart's experimental supercenter in Aurora is the retailer's biggest, newest step becoming an environmental steward.

If retailers shift focus away from commodity items and toward specialty products and computer accessories, they can jump-start category growth, according to a SHOPA study.

The most effective marketing message is local, and new in-store technology is making that efficient, too.