Supermarket/Grocery

Nearly half of holiday shoppers will hit the stores before Nov. 1 — and many will be looking for deals.   That’s according to a report by RetailMeNot, a digital savings destination connecting consumers with retailers, restaurants and brands, both online and in-store. Seventy-three percent of shoppers said they plan to shop in brick-and-mortar stores this season, and 50% said that the deals they find will help them determine which days to shop in-store.      

At a time when loyalty programs are becoming ubiquitous, Lowes Foods’ new service is breaking the mold.    The grocery chain is launching a promotional reward campaign in 75 stores across North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. For every $10 spent at Lowes Foods stores, customers will receive one stamp — either traditional or virtual — at checkout, good toward VIVO kitchen knives, knife blocks and cutting boards. The promotion runs until February 26, 2017.   

MOM’s Organic Market started as a produce delivery company based out of the founder’s mother’s garage and has grown into a 16-store grocery chain.     “We carry much more than Trader Joe’s and less than Whole Foods,” founder Scott Nash told The Washington Post.  

Whole Foods Market has received an award for deploying cutting-edge, advanced refrigeration technology.   The grocer received the 2015-2016 “Best of the Best” award from the EPA’s GreenChill Partnership for using an advanced, more environmentally sustainable refrigeration system at its store in Dublin, California.  

It’s no secret that the world’s biggest online retailer is planning to open a drive-up grocery store in its Seattle hometown — at least it hasn’t been a secret since GeekWire reported the news about two months ago.    

Hands down, “digital disruption” was the theme of the third annual Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit, held in Rogers, Arkansas. In line with evolving concept itself, there were many definitions of what digital disruption truly means heard throughout the event.  

Target Corp. is planning to test an agricultural process that involves growing plants indoors in precisely programmed conditions.   The discounter plans to test vertical farms within select U.S. stores, according Business Insider. The idea grew out of the Food + Future CoLab, a collaboration between Target, Ideo and the MIT Media Lab.  

Updated regulations take effect Dec. 1 — are you ready?

In response to concern that wages at the low end of the pay scale were slow to rise, particularly for store managers and assistant store managers, the United States Department of Labor updated the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations defining which white collar workers must be paid overtime pay.