"grocery stores" news and stories

Man, the Asian countries have it so good.

First we hear about Dunkin Donuts going to Shanghai and offering things like honeydew flavored doughnuts, then we find out that Costco in Taiwan is pretty much the picture of bulk Asian food awesomeness. (I didn't even know that Costco was anywhere except the United States).

Teczcape documented a trip to Costco in Taiwan, and though the ridiculously long lines at the rotisserie chicken counter and the requirement that all payments are made in cash are nothing to envy, I couldn't help but covet the bulk bags of kimchi (in the picture, lower left bag in the cart). It's Costco, so who knows about the quality of the kimchi, but at least it's not Kirkland brand!

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We don't know why we're feeling especially green this weekend, but we were tickled when we came across news that Safeway, the nation's third-largest grocer, announced that it will convert its entire fleet of trucks to run on biodiesel. This will reduce Safeway's carbon emissions by 75 millions pounds each year.

The move is just another step in the grocery chain's full-scale initiative that executives call their "green energy tree." The program includes recycling, energy efficiency, and using sustainable sources of fuel like solar power in stores and now, biodiesel based on soy in their 1,000 trucks.

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Ever buy seasonings in those packets (not that I am particularly endorsing that behavior as they are often full of chemicals) from the grocery store but struggle with how best to store them? Then this tip from the Unclutterer might be up your alley. Get yourself one of those plastic 3x5 (or 4x6 for the larger packets) notecard boxes and pop the packets in there. Keeps them contained, orderly and bug-free (if you really want to satisfying your inner anal retentive, go ahead and alphabetize them)!

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I'm not exactly sure how much time or energy this web technology saves, but apparently, Grocist allows you to scan products to create an electronic grocery list.

You keep a barcode scanner in your kitchen and when you run out of a product, you scan the barcode from the package before you throw it away. The web application searches a UPC database to determine the product and keeps a running grocery list for you.

While the idea of this sounds pretty cool, I can't see how scanning a barcode is any faster or easier than jotting something down on a list that's taped to your refrigerator door. I also can't really see people running out to buy a barcode scanner. Additionally, using Grocist assumes that a lot of your groceries are packaged goods that would be found in the UPC database. I don't know this for sure, but the last time I went to the grocery store, there weren't any barcodes on garlic and lettuce.

However, if the Grocist were to actually send that information at the end of every week via email to the grocery store who could deliver the groceries to my front door, then I'd pay attention!

[via: Lifehacker]

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The California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA) just released the results of a study they conducted on California's Food Landscape, entitled "Searching for Healthy Food." Basically, the study started with the facts that the state of California had " more than four times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors" back in 2005 and the CCPHA wanted to see if California was in a better state today.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things have improved all that much during the course of 2006. There are still an average of just over 4 times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors, with a range of 1.84 in Santa Cruz County to 5.72 in San Bernardino County. CCPHA suggests trying to encourage supermarkets and farmers markets to develop in underserved areas to try to stop the spread of the convenience-types of stores and restaurants, as the greater their concentration, the higher the obesity risk tends to be.

The worst counties were: San Bernardino, Sacramento (5.66), Fresno (5.34), Orange (5.13), Solano (5.08), Kern (4.87), Stanislaus (4.79), Contra Costa (4.66), Riverside (4.63) and Alameda (4.61).

The worst cities were: Bakersfield (6.63), Fresno (6.23), Long Beach (5.80), Riverside (5.58), Sacramento (4.97), Anaheim (4.79), Stockton (4.73), San Jose (4.62), San Diego (4.58), Santa Ana (4.40) and Los Angeles (4.24), with San Francisco (3.85) and Oakland (3.81) just barely cutting under the state average.

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