Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Co.

LOS ANGELES — Katie Bayne, president and general manager of sparkling beverages for Coca-Cole North America, has been elected to the American Film Institute's board of trustees.

ATLANTA — Coca-Cola is giving fans a chance to get an insider's look at Team USA through its London 2012 Olympic Games campaign.

SALT LAKE CITY — Schiff Nutrition has appointed a new SVP and chief commercial officer.

Richard Baruch Jr. most recently served as VP category advisory services at Coca-Cola, where he led an initiative to build a new organization and bring a new set of capabilities to Coca-Cola's North American business.

Launching new products is difficult in the best of times, but winners of the 2012 Nielsen Breakthrough Innovation Award found ways to succeed during one the worst recessions in a generation.

Nielsen announced recipients of the awards at its annual Consumer 360 event in Hollywood, Fla., this week after analyzing more than 11,000 new products in the United States between 2008 and 2010. Of the products evaluated, only 34 met award criteria. These products comprise less than 0.5% of all new product introductions during the period.

The seventh annual Best Companies for Leadership Study conducted by the global consulting firm the Hay Group ranked Walmart eighth.

Walmart’s eighth  place ranking on the top 20 list is one notch better than the prior year, but slightly below the company’s 6th place ranking in 2009 when it made the list for the first time.

Plenty of people shop Walmart’s stores for their groceries but go elsewhere to buy meat. Now the company is looking to convert a larger percentage of its more discriminating shoppers to purchasers of meat with a new quality-based initiative supported by an innovative shopper marketing strategy and a national ad campaign.

Philadelphia -- McDonald’s and Wal-Mart Stores are among the Top 20 companies in the world for leadership, taking the No. 6 and No. 8 spots respectively, according to an annual study by global management firm Hay Group. The two chains were the only retailers to make the list.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bi-Lo and Coca-Cola have partnered with the USO to support its Operation Phone Home program, which connects troops deployed overseas with their families back home through, among other things, a private phone network. For every rotisserie meal bundle sold at all Bi-Lo stores, Coca-Cola will donate $1 to OPH, which buys troops about 20 minutes of talk time.