Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Co. has acquired Trenton Coca-Cola Bottling Company, based in Trenton, Missouri. All employees will join the Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Co. team during the transition. “We are thrilled to welcome the employees, customers and communities of Trenton Coca-Cola Bottling Company into the Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Company family,” said CEO Rob Feeney of Des Moines, Iowa-based Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Co. “We have a long history of commitment to serving customers, community and associates, and we are looking forward to our future growth together.” Both companies boas ..read more

The board of directors of the Tennessee Grocers and Convenience Store Association has recognized Richard K. “Rick” James as its 2024 Retailer of the Year, while also identifying Tommy Harber as Supplier of the Year.  Rick James The Retailer- and Supplier of the Year designations represent the highest honors bestowed by the organization’s member leadership, and traditionally go to those who have demonstrated outstanding professional and civic involvement.  James and Harber were recognized at the association’s annual convention and expo May 16 in Murfreesboro. Owner and CEO of Castle R ..read more

Sponsored content Charlie Wood, VP of sales at Bake’n Joy, discusses the latest bakery trends and key factors for retailers to consider when choosing a bakery partner. Charlie Wood Wood has a history of working in the food and beverages industry. His areas of expertise include consumer products, management, marketing strategy, competitive analysis and strategy. He is a strong sales professional with a bachelor’s degree focused in business administration and management, general from Plymouth State University. Prior to joining Bake’n Joy Foods in 2022, Wood held senior leadership positions for ..read more

By Diana Leza Sheehan / founder and principal consultant, PDG Insights The American grocery landscape is a fascinating ecosystem of national giants and regional independents, learning and competing against each other. The Southwest region of the United States has evolved in unexpected ways, driven by strong independents that innovate effectively while continuing to successfully compete against home-grown international titans and former regional players acquired by national chains.  In this report, part of Shelby Publishing’s Successfully Selling Regional Grocers series this month, we delv ..read more

Grocers continually strive to prioritize customer satisfaction and operational efficiency while maintaining high food safety standards. To achieve this, grocers such as Jerry’s Foods, Knowlan’s Fresh Foods and Giant Eagle have renewed, upgraded and expanded their relationships with SmartSense to help amplify their commitment to ongoing food safety practices and quality assurance. “Our mission is to provide our grocery customers with IoT solutions and automation tools that seamlessly bolster operational efficiency and compliance throughout their stores,” said Guy Yehiav, president of SmartSense ..read more

Save A Lot is bringing a new store to the community at 415 Mill St. in Leitchfield, Kentucky, replacing an older location in town. Owned and operated by Houchens Food Group, a grand-opening celebration took place on May 29, giving residents the opportunity to experience the new store. This location is one of the 88 Houchens Food Group owns across Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia. “We’re thrilled to have the Houchens Food Group building this new remodeled location in Leitchfield, Kentucky,” said Save A Lot CEO Fred Boehler. “We kno ..read more

The National Grocers Association (NGA) has submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), highlighting critical gaps in healthy benefit card access in the Medicare Advantage (MA) supplemental benefits for the chronically ill (SSBCI) food program. In its comments, NGA underscores the exclusion of independent grocers from healthy benefit cards and calls for transparency and standardization to enhance benefit accessibility for independent grocers and the communities they serve. The growth of SSBCI food programs has introduced “healthy benefit cards,” which allow MA ..read more

The Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association (PFMA) welcomed industry leaders for its annual conference May 7-8 at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square. “It’s always a joy to unite our new members with long-standing partners for a rich blend of connection and education,” said Alex Baloga, president and CEO of PFMA.  “This year, we grew our mini trade show to 14 vendors and had four enlightening sessions that touched on artificial intelligence, the PA Preferred program, branding and training.” The event opened May 7 with the association’s annual and wholesalers’ meetings, followed by the s ..read more

Sponsored content In Part I of the series, the data showed that there’s a mismatch between loyalty membership and loyalty behavior. Here in Part II, we take a closer look at those loyalty customers to explore what grocers can do to make super-users out of those infrequent loyalty members. For any given grocer, there are two primary groups of people that exist within your orbit: your loyalty customers and everyone else. Digging a bit deeper, though, we quickly see that “loyalty customer” is an overly simplistic label. Within that group, there are two more distinct subgroups: loyalty “super-use ..read more

ARG’s technology has continued to evolve along with its retailers over the last 20 years based upon the changing market and competitive landscape.  As company officials have noted, this includes leveraging the advantages of data utilization and machine learning on its repository of retailer data to deliver solutions for individual stores that they are not resourced to do on their own. “Our goal,” said iPro President Mike Bokarae, “is to close the technology gap between our independents and their chain store competition. Utilizing data through our custom-built technology solutions provides ..read more