All Blog Posts (155)

I had the opportunity to meet with old friends from across the food and beverage continuum at a Shopper insight conference last week, we chatted about the economy, Shopper and retailer planning and that we have all been here before when it comes to tough times and price increases.

 The US corn mandate to ethanol has driven input cost up and price to retailers and shoppers will rise soon. Everything from beer to poultry prices will rise, and firing your suppliers for price increases…

Recently The Telegraph newspaper from the UK reported that Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating, and a food psychologist at Cornell University claimed through his research that the average person makes about 200 food related decisions per day. The question on the minds of many independent grocers upon hearing that news is very likely, “How can I help you?”

Unlike the big box stores that pile up mountains of merchandise and entice…

This is a picture of the front end at my local CVS on 41st Street and Queens Blvd. I snapped it with my phone, so it's a little blurry. This is how CVS converts shoppers to self-checkout -- by having no help at the manned registers. They didn't even give me a choice when I asked to checkout at…

The events of the last 24 hours have me thinking a lot about the increasing role that social media plays in our day to day lives. Today is election day in Canada, and as a result I have been glued to my twitter and facebook feeds even more than normal for the last 5 weeks. 

Last night I was scanning the last minute opinion poll results and seat projections on my new Motorola Xoom tablet, with my blackberry at my side and flipping between the Canadian news networks on the…

In a commercial for the Certified General Accountants of Canada, one of the accountants asks the camera, “Do I believe the environment deserves a balance sheet?”, to which he replies, “Yes, I do.” How does this statement impact small business owners? Do we have a responsibility to try and assist in improving that balance sheet? And if we do, how do we know we're being successful?

One of the most important tools that small business owners can use to determine just how…

What started out as a challenge between the manager of community-based independent Ring Bros. Marketplace and 11 year old Elizabeth Kirby to get a few Facebook fans snowballed into a lesson of the power of social media and a windfall of support for a local food pantry.



While Elizabeth and her mother Kerrie were shopping at South Dennis, Mass.-based Ring Bros. Marketplace last Tuesday afternoon they struck up a…

IGA has joined forces with charitable group Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) -- an organization whose mission is to honor and empower soldiers wounded in combat -- to create IGA USA’s first IGA Private Brand cause marketing initiative.



During the national campaign—running in participating IGA stores from Memorial Day Weekend (May 27) through Labor Day weekend (Sept. 5)—IGA will donate 10 cents from the sale of every specially marked case of IGA Brand water to the Wounded Warrior…

Exactly one year ago this month, the greatest opportunity of my grocery career presented itself. My local Member of Provincial Parlimanent (in Ontario we call them MPPs, similar to a state congressman) was appointed to the federal senate. That's another oddity of the Canadian parliamentary system and the political scientist in me is about to digress. Having been involved in politics since the age of 18, I have always known that I would some day run for political office. And so, with no money…

I recently watched "The Social Network," the fictionalized account of Facebook's rise from a Harvard student's side project to the social media platform that has changed the way many of us communicate. And while the movie was loosely based on the truth, there was one quote from Jesse Isenberg's Mark Zuckerberg that captured the dynamic nature of social media that continues to give us new and interesting ways in which we can connect with each other:

In describing Facebook…

Thanks to section 179 of the US tax code, in 2011 you can write off 100% of the purchase price (up to $2,000,000) of qualifying equipment from your gross income in the tax year the purchase is made.  This works particularly well with energy efficiency equipment when you combine this major tax deduction with utility incentives and lease financing. 

For example, say your ten store chain implements $200,000 of energy efficiency upgrades.   You are able to get utility financial incentives…