Supermarket & Grocery Industry News

SCARBOROUGH, Maine -- Hannaford Supermarkets here said yesterday it was taking part in Upromise, a free Needham, Mass.-based service that helps families earn money back for college when they buy hundreds of products made by from participating manufacturers. Shoppers at any Hannaford location will now be able to benefit from the program.

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Associated Grocers, Inc. of Baton Rouge, La., is on the trail to data synchronization, planning to connect its existing systems to the 1SYNC data pool.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- In celebration of National Frozen Food Month in March, Wal-Mart supercenters across the country shared the National Frozen Food Association's "Warm Up to Frozen" message on Saturday by offering a calendar, tied to the upcoming 20th Century Fox release "Ice Age: The Meltdown," that features frozen food tips and vendor information.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- National Beef Packing Co., LLC (National Beef) and its majority owner, U.S. Premium Beef, LLC (USPB), based here, have entered into a non-binding agreement to acquire Brawley Beef, LLC.

CARLISLE, Pa. -- Deborah Vereen, director of organizational effectiveness and diversity for Giant Food Stores here, will lecture on corporate diversity at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa.

SAN ANTONIO -- HEB here said it has issued a recall of its entire HEB Baby Food line, including Mom's Choice Organic Baby Food, in response to three consumer reports of glass shards found inside jars of peas, carrots, and applesauce. The reports originated in Houston and Corpus Christi, but the grocer made the decision to remove the products from all of its Texas stores on Wednesday.

CARTERET, N.J. -- Pathmark Stores, Inc. here has awarded Waitsfield, Vt.-based Northern Power, a subsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp., a contract to provide three turnkey photovoltaic (PV) systems to the Northeast regional grocer's Garwood, Elizabeth, and Lawnside, N.J. locations. The turnkey systems, which will have a total capacity of 750 kilowatts, will be designed, built, and commissioned by Northern Power in association with New Jersey-based BGA LLC Engineering.

LANGHORNE, Pa. -- Community Options, a Princeton, N.J.-based nonprofit agency that provides employment services and housing for people with disabilities, has honored McCaffrey's Supermarkets president and c.e.o. James McCaffrey as its sixth annual Person of the Year, according to a local press report.