In her famously cheerful book “On Death and Dying,” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. One troubled grocery chain on the West Coast appears to be entering stage one, while another troubled grocery chain on the Gulf Coast has made it all the way to stage five. Nearly two months after its[Read More…]
Small-government advocates are in a bit of an uproar, about authorities telling us how much we should pay for milk. “Louisiana Milk Police Combat Prices That Are Too Reasonable,” headlines Libertarian magazine Reason.com. “Holy cow!” says Fox News. “Udderly ridiculous,” writes the conservative news site WND. They’re all reacting to a recent news report that’s not necessarily news to people[Read More…]
Never mind discounts and digital coupons, here’s one way your grocery store loyalty card can help you get stuff for free – just use it to break into someone’s house and steal their food. That turned out not to be such a great idea for a York, South Carolina man last week. The Herald newspaper reports that a 28-year-old homeowner[Read More…]
If you’re going shopping this weekend, and paying with a credit card – watch out. Beginning Sunday, stores can charge you extra for it. Under the terms of a settlement reached last year, stores will have the option of adding a surcharge for credit card payments – passing the cost that they already pay to the credit card companies, on[Read More…]
Remember when Webvan was going to revolutionize the supermarket industry? Ordering your groceries online and having them delivered to your doorstep was going to be the way we all shopped in the future. But Webvan went bust a dozen years ago. So is it the future yet? In an era when music stores have been supplanted by music downloads, and[Read More…]
Poor Fresh & Easy – apparently routinely and illegally overcharging its customers wasn’t even enough to keep it afloat. Now, the troubled chain will have to pay fines it can’t afford, and agree to a pricing program that may well outlive it. San Diego’s District Attorney announced today that Fresh & Easy has been ordered to pay $833,136 in penalties[Read More…]
Judging by the vocal reaction from military families late last year, any proposal that would affect their commissary benefit is not a popular one. But a new survey suggests that many military families are actually fine with the idea. Really. That word comes from First Command Financial Services, a financial planning company that serves members of the U.S. military. Its[Read More…]
Kevin the Meatbay Butcher is not amused. The personable, punny public face of the Florida-based Sweetbay grocery chain’s Facebook page fell silent today, so his platform could be taken over for a more pressing matter. The Sweetbay Facebook page became an impromptu counseling session, to help customers and employees take in the news that a third of the chain’s stores[Read More…]
First, there was relief – several troubled supermarket chains would get deep-pocketed new owners. Then came uncertainty – who are these new owners, and what do they really want with these stores? Then came the realization – they’ve likely rescued the stores from an owner that was running them into the ground, just for the value of the ground they’re[Read More…]
(1/11 update – read: “Bigger, Better, or Goners? What’s in Store For Your Jewel-Osco, Acme, Shaw’s and Star Market”) The troubled supermarket operator Supervalu has now confirmed what’s long been rumored – it’s selling off several of its chains. Chicago-based Jewel-Osco, Philadelphia-based Acme, Boston-based Shaw’s and Star Market, and Albertsons stores in California, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington[Read More…]
