- Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1360 working in South Jersey have ratified a new collective bargaining agreement with Albertsons-owned Acme Markets. The five-year includes raises and equalization of wage scales, along with increases in starting rates for new employees. The agreement also calls for the company to provide sufficient funding to maintain health care benefits for active members as well as retirees, and increases in pension contributions.
- Supervalu Inc. reportedly plans to open as many as 100 of its Save-A-Lot and Deal$ stores over the next few years.
- Press reports out of the UK say that William Morrison Supermarkets has reopened two of the Safeway Plc stores that it bought there under the Morrison banner, renovating the units so that they include the company’s traditional “Market Street” fresh food concept, which features individual stalls offering fish, meat, and baked goods.
A total of 50 of the acquired Safeway stores are expected to be rehabbed by the end of the year.
- Wal-Mart’s Asda Group in the UK, which has opened two stand-alone clothing stores that sell only its popular George fashion lines, is opening a third – and in doing so is throwing down the gantlet to one of its major, albeit troubled, competitors. The new George store will be directly opposite a Marks & Spencer store in Preston, England.
- Having acquired Kinkos for $2.4 billion, FedEx Corp. is now renaming its 1,100 locations, which now will be known as FedEx Kinko's Office and Print Centers.
- Washington State researchers say that they are developing a new method of microwaving food that will allow for salmon to be packaged in a pouch and sold from store shelves without need of refrigeration.
- KC's View:
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Maybe this is progress. But it doesn’t sound like any salmon we’d want to eat.
