Trading Partners

BOISE, Idaho -- In honor of Black History Month, Albertsons and Coca-Cola are teaming up to make donations to African-American non-profit organizations nationwide.

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Legislation currently under consideration here would allow Washington state grocery stores measuring more than 12,000 square feet to offer shoppers free two-ounce samples of beer and wine, something only specialty stores can do now.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Ingles Markets, Inc. yesterday confirmed its fiscal 2004 results, following a preliminary report the company released several weeks ago. Net income at the regional chain based here reached $28.8 million, or $1.22 per share, for the fiscal year ended Sept. 25, 2004 -- the highest net income in its 41-year history and a 69 percent increase over its net income of $17.0 million for fiscal 2003.

NEW YORK -- ACNielsen Homescan director Gary Crisafulli and Joe Pilotta, v.p. of research for Worthington, Ohio-based BIGreserach, are among the speakers who will head up the educational portion of Dollar Summit V, in April, convened by Retail Merchandiser. Both Retail Merchandiser and Progressive Grocer are owned by VNU Business Media.

Progressive Grocer salutes three standout retail meat programs that are corralling consumers into the department.

With everybody trying to get ethnic at retail, supermarkets have to fight harder than ever to stake their claim.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Publix is keeping its shoppers satisfied in terms of quality, service, and price, while Wal-Mart supercenters may have some work to do when it comes to those first two measures, according to the University of Michigan's latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), released today.

Associated Food Stores has evolved its buying from pencil-and-paper hunches to a system of profit-building, computerized analysis -- one warehouse at a time.