"Kroger" news and stories

It's hard enough as it is to get the kids to eat their salad. But Tracy Grimes will have an even tougher time getting her 4- and 8-year-old kids to nibble their greens after she says she found a tree frog in a bag of romaine lettuce she bought from a Kroger supermarket in Sterling Heights, Mich., last Friday.

Grimes, of Troy, Mich., told Slashfood she noticed something moving inside the package as she was getting ready to make a salad for dinner.

"I didn't know what I was seeing but sure enough, I looked a little closer and there was a small light green tree frog, happy as can be, crawling around, living life in the bag of lettuce," she said Tuesday. "I just sort of gasped a bit, and then I stared and just remember thinking 'That's not right.'"

Ever wondered where that lettuce leaf you're eating was grown?

Kroger says it's become the first grocery chain to employ traceability technology on its salads, so consumers can see exactly where its packaged Fresh Selections salad greens come from.

For its pre-washed, ready-to-serve salads, Kroger is using HarvestMark technology -- a 16-digit tracking code on packaging that consumers can plug into HarvestMark's Web site to trace the greens back to the source, including the region where the produce was grown and the date it was packed. It's part of the grocer's new "Quality You Can Trace" program.

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Zapatista coffee offers not only an amazing cup of joe, but a chance to do something good for those who have less. Cafe Rebelion, formerly know as The Human Bean Company, aims to develop a direct market for products from the Chiapas area of Mexico. Indigenous producers participate in all levels of advice, consent and participation of the coffee project.

Cafe Rebelion eliminates the middle man of the coffee production and enables the farmers of the Zapatista co-operatives to receive the maximum profits for their labors. The coffee is grown among the natural vegetation on indigenous communal land, as opposed to harsh, chemically produced coffee from the large, deforested coffee plantations.

Many people initially buy the Cafe Rebelion products, honey or coffee, in an effort to help with a worthy project. But after experiencing the purity of both the coffee and honey they come back time and again for the smoothe taste. I bought a bag of the light roast at our church and am now 100% devoted to the company and the coffee. I will never again be able to purchase Folger's or Kroger brand coffee. And with the added knowledge that this is a genuinely socially minded company, I can feel good about my addiction.

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I think this package says it all. I picked up a pound of maple sausage, the delectable links that my family has always called "breakfast sausage" without allowing a title to limit our consumption. No, we eat it from dawn 'til dusk, despite its moniker.

Evidently, Fred Meyer (our local grocery and part of the Kroger gi-nomerate) is worried that the name "breakfast sausage" will limit more conservative families to (horrors!) eat it only during breakfast. They've changed the label so it reads, "maple flavored sausage" and "delicious anytime!"

Thank you, Fred Meyer, for freeing us -- and our sausages -- from the shackles of breakfast.