Trading Partners

Helping time- and money-challenged households was frozen and prepared food manufacturer Sanderson Farms’ inspiration in developing the “Pull From the Pantry” program, which encourages families to make meals at home with basic ingredients already in their kitchens.

Mere weeks after a successful, first-of-its-kind Michigan Foods Fair at its Union Lake store, Hiller’s will host two simultaneous two-day Michigan food fairs May 2 and May 3 at its Ann Arbor and Commerce Township, Mich., locations.

To educate Americans on how saving money can also save the planet, Whole Foods Market and Bosch Home Appliances, a 2009 Energy Star Partner of the Year, have joined forces with a 30-day call-to-action campaign to remind Americans that environmental responsibility can go hand in hand with economic recovery.

Galleria yesterday formed a strategic alliance with retail consultancy Winston Weber & Associates (WWA) to combine WWA's category management business process expertise with Galleria's merchandising solutions to help retailers execute optimized, store-specific merchandise plans.

DemandTec, Inc., a San Carlos, Calif.-based provider of on-demand optimization solutions for retailers and consumer products manufacturers, has tapped Weather Trends International (WTI) to provide year-ahead weather insights and forecasts for users on the DemandTec TradePoint Network and for use in the underlying DemandTec modeling platform.

In anticipation of the upcoming summer season, Imagination Farms is adding two new suppliers, SGS and Dayka & Hackett, LLC, to provide stone fruit and grapes for Disney Garden’s expanding offerings.

Campbell Soup Co. has created a new Web site called “Campbell’s Ideas for Innovation” (www.campbellideas.com) where scientists, entrepreneurs and inventors can easily submit their ideas for evaluation.

Despite consumers’ pronounced penchant for trading down to cheaper cuts of beef, pork and chicken, new data presented at the last month’s Annual Meat Conference in Denver on retail shopper behavior from October 2008 through January 2009 reveals that consumers are buying more meat -- including beef -- than they were a year ago.