Supermarket & Grocery Industry News

WASHINGTON - Representatives from the food industry were on hand here late last week to offer their views on how the food pyramid might be improved -- or, at the least, better communicated to consumers -- as the Aug. 27 deadline nears for written comments on the issue.

MONROVIA, Calif. - Trader Joe's, based here, has decided to stop buying grocery bags from Federal Way, Wash.-based Weyerhaeuser, a company that the environmental advocacy group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) calls "the No. 1 destroyer of old-growth forests in North America."

NEW YORK ¿ Legislation has been proposed in New York state that would require a wide variety of grocery products be labeled as choking hazards to children under 4. The state bill, modeled on proposed national legislation that has been bandied about recently, would apply to nuts, hard candy, gum, peanut butter, and popcorn.

CHESHIRE, Conn. ¿ Bozzuto's, Inc., a wholesale grocer based here with annual sales in excess of $1 billion, plans to automate its existing pricing processes using TCI Solutions' TCI HQ for centralized price management and hosting, including using the software vendor's POS eXchange to interface with its Adams Super Food Stores' new point-of-sale systems.

LAKELAND, Fla. ¿ Some sense of normalcy is slowly returning for Florida's food retailers and manufacturers as the state continues to clean up after Hurricane Charley. Retailers reported most of their stores were up and running. The state's citrus crop may have been decimated by the storm.

COLTON, Calif. - Aggressive marketing tactics in the face of tough competition netted Stater Bros. substantial gains in its third-quarter and year-to-date periods, the chain said yesterday.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. ¿ Wegman's Food Markets, the family-owned 66-store supermarket chain that's a pioneer in the movement toward data synchronization, recognized business integration provider Sterling Commerce for its role in synchronizing item data with more than 100 of the retailer's suppliers.

MINNEAPOLIS - Supervalu, Inc. yesterday confirmed that it will continue to operate its Tacoma, Wash. distribution facility to support its strong base of independent retailers and extensive military business served by the Tacoma location.