Nonfoods

NEW YORK - Leading pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc. has sent a letter to Farmland Industries Inc., offering to buy the company's beef and pork operations, people close to the situation told The Wall Street Journal.

NEW YORK - McDonald's Corp. is exploring how to use its restaurant locations to sell items other than food, Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported.

PHILADELPHIA - In an effort to organize employees at Norristown, Pa.-based Genuardi's Family Markets, five United Food and Commercial Workers union locals are planning a big campaign over Memorial Day weekend, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

MILWAUKEE - The $750 million sale of Roundy's Inc. to a Chicago investment firm received shareholder approval Tuesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

NEW YORK - Seven of the major U.S. supermarket chains were targeted on Tuesday in a hidden camera report for "Dateline NBC" that accused some 33 stores of changing dates on meat, poultry and seafood packages.

LAKE FOREST, Ill. - Packaging provider Pactiv Corporation today announced an agreement to purchase Winkler Forming Inc., a thermoformer of amorphous polyethylene terephthalate (APET) for food packaging, for $72.5 million.

Some claim supermarkets are giving away sales to the bakery cafes that are rapidly proliferating in small towns and suburbs.

CAMDEN, N.J. - Campbell Soup Co. today said it is pursuing possible additions to its portfolio of brands, which includes Pepperidge Farm cookies and V8 beverages, Reuters reports.