Food Retailing

Albertsons ACI -1.79% Cos. sales rose 5% to $18.27 billion in the recently ended quarter as consumers continue to stomach higher food prices. The supermarket company, which operates chains such as Safeway, Shaw’s and Acme, said higher prices and growth in its pharmacy business pushed identical sales, a metric that strips out store closings and openings, up 5.6% in the three months ended Feb. 25. Gross margin for the Boise,…

Whole Foods Market is exploring building commercial kitchens that would make prepared meals for the grocer’s food bars and refrigerated cases, people familiar with the matter said. The move is a shift for the Amazon. AMZN 0.95% com Inc.-owned supermarket operator, which has outsourced much of its food production to other companies after years ago closing its own kitchens to cut costs. Operating its own kitchens could help Whole Foods better control the quality of its…

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it considered cultivated chicken made by Good Meat Inc. safe to eat, making it the second company in the growing industry to have cleared a key regulatory hurdle. Good Meat, based in Alameda, Calif., is the cultivated-meat arm of food-technology company Eat Just Inc. It is now the only company selling its chicken to consumers—but that is just in Singapore, the only country so far to permit the sale to consumers of meat grown from…

The commercial relationships between retailers and their suppliers that shifted under the strains of the Covid-19 pandemic are transforming again as companies cope with continuing changes in consumer spending and high costs across their supply chains.Large companies including Walmart Inc. and Whole Foods Market are pressing suppliers to cut prices for goods while others have been canceling orders for products from clothing to appliances. That is a stark change from buying strategies as…

Global real-estate investment manager Hines is paying $112 million for a suburban New York shopping center featuring a Whole Foods, the largest grocery-anchored retail sale in the U.S. since September.The sale of the 262,000-square-foot property in White Plains, N.Y., shows how demand for grocery-store complexes persists, despite rising interest rates and slowing activity for other property types. These outlets have become increasingly attractive as the pandemic winds down and consumers return to shopping in person.…

As the country’s two biggest supermarket chains envision the future of their planned megamerger, you’ll be able to purchase groceries, a coffee, patio furniture, and your allergy medicine prescription. The store deduces you might also like a humidifier to help the sneezes and some local honey, all of which it has ready for you. At dinnertime, order in sushi, which was made by a kitchen owned by the supermarket. When Kroger Co. KR -0.32% agreed to buy…

Instacart Inc. is adding OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot technology to its grocery-delivery app, joining a growing list of companies that are turning to the humanlike artificial-intelligence language tool in efforts to boost customer services, marketing and other automated tasks. Instacart will use the chatbot to power a new search engine designed to respond to users’ food-related questions, such as asking for recipe ideas and ingredients, or healthy meal options, the San Francisco startup said Wednesday. By tapping ChatGPT’s…

Instacart Inc. generated sharply higher sales and profit in the fourth quarter, according to people familiar with the matter and an internal memo, as the company prepares for its highly anticipated initial public offering of stock.The grocery-delivery company told employees on Tuesday that its revenue increased more than 50% in the fourth quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier, while gross profit rose more than 80%, according to a memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Instacart’s full-year revenue…

EAST WINDSOR, Conn.—The front line of Connecticut’s latest alcohol policy debate is a strip mall just off the interstate here, where shoppers entering Geissler’s Supermarket and nearby Kaman’s Fine Wine and Liquors are greeted by signs urging them to take sides.On one end of the fight, grocers such as Geissler’s have launched a campaign this year to allow the sale of wine in grocery stores, a practice that is already legal in most states. They argue putting wine alongside the beer already on their shelves will make things…

The U.S. food industry is tapping a new pool of workers to staff plants and grocery warehouses: their former employees. Kroger Co. KR 0.34% , the biggest U.S. supermarket operator by sales, is staying in touch with ex-employees and bringing some back. Cereal maker General Mills Inc. GIS 2.21% has persuaded some retirees to return to plant jobs, and other food-company recruiters have combed social media for former…