Deli / Prepared Foods

On the heels of news that it will dramatically expand its fresh food offerings, Walgreens has named grocery and c-store veteran Jim Jensen divisional merchandise manager for the new category.

Every day we’re bombarded with press releases and notices of new healthy attributes of one food or another. And while I applaud the efforts of scientists to discover the perfect combination of foods for health, it’s with a bit of trepidation that I disperse the news of each finding. If we didn’t, every day we’d be notifying you of new announcements and trends.

New York-based drug chain Duane Reade is offering a new online coupon gallery that’s accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Ocean Mist Farms is going green by making its new soup and salad recipe cookbooks available digitally online.

A new year offers a fresh start. This idea holds as true for the center store as any other part of the supermarket. To begin with, grocers can expect forward-looking CPG manufacturers to really step up to the plate in terms of making their businesses more effective, streamlining their supply chain practices and bringing their marketing strategies more decisively into the digital age.

As shoppers increasingly demand better-for-you products from consumer packaged goods companies, major manufacturers, among them General Mills, Sara Lee and Campbell, have been stepping up to the plate by reformulating familiar foods to offer enhanced health benefits.

Super 1 Foods stores have started a new savings program to help shoppers stretch their dollars, while the chain’s parent company, Brookshire Grocery Co. (BGC), has introduced the “Food Club Frenzy” program this month, which offers participating customers the opportunity to win up to $3,000.

According to the “7th annual FSI Distribution Trends Report,” last year free-standing insert (FSI) coupons saw their greatest activity in 10 years, with more than 272 billion coupons dropped — an 8 percent increase over last year.