Farm Fresh

Elizabeth L. Krinkey, 71, grocery cashier Elizabeth LaVerne Krinkey, a Pikesville grocery cashier, died Wednesday of cancer at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. She was 71. Mrs. Krinkey, a Pikesville resident, retired several years ago from her job at the Greenspring Avenue Farm Fresh, where customers sought out her register line for friendly conversation. Born Elizabeth LaVerne Smith, she grew up on Preston Street in Baltimore. and attended St. Andrew's Business School. After graduation, she worked at a local insurance agency as a rater and underwriter - a job that required women to wear white gloves and a proper hat - and spent nearly every weekend at Ocean City with her sisters and girlfriends.

The underside of a freeway ramp doesn't seem the most likely spot for a colorful profusion of flowers, fruits, vegetables and crafts, but the Baltimore Farmers' Market flourishes there every Sunday morning from June until December.Steamy or sleety, the day begins early. Vendors arrive at Saratoga and Holliday streets under the Jones Falls Expressway as early as 4:30 a.m. or 5 a.m. to set up for the 8 a.m. opening. Preparations at home begin even earlier."We start picking on Friday and pick all day Saturday," says Richard Seletzky, who, with his son Ian, sells vegetables and flowers.

A former manager in the now-defunct Farm Fresh supermarket chain pleaded guilty yesterday for his part in a scheme that defrauded national food companies of $2.4 million by submitting tens of thousands of "misredeemed" price-chopping coupons.Kenneth Goldscher, 47, of Owings Mills pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to tax evasion and interstate transportation of stolen property. He admitted in a statement of facts presented in court to receiving $185,890 in cash from the misredeemed coupons.

It wasn't the typical way to make $2.4 million: clipping and redeeming tens of thousands of price-chopping coupons that knock 50 cents off a loaf of bread or $1 off a box of detergent.But according to FBI and IRS agents, that's how the president of a once-thriving Maryland supermarket chain illegally made part of his fortune.An indictment filed this week in U.S. District Court in Baltimore charges Jack I. Millman with redeeming coupons that customers never turned in. The indictment alleges he paid people to clip coupons for dozens of products and turned them in himself, claiming that people had bought the items at one of his 10 Farm Fresh stores.

In a bid to strengthen its supermarket business in the mid-Atlantic, Richfood Holdings Inc., which owns Metro Food Markets, has agreed to purchase Dart Group Corp. for $160 a share in cash, or about $207 million, the company said yesterday.Richmond, Va.,-based Richfood, a grocery wholesaler that has expanded into retailing, is buying Dart, a Landover-based retail holding company, primarily to acquire Shoppers Food Warehouse, a chain of 37 discount supermarkets in Maryland and Virginia and the third largest chain in metropolitan Washington, with stores in Anne Arundel, Charles, Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

Everybody knows that the best way to enjoy Silver Queen corn -- a summertime treat of most Marylanders -- is to pick it in the field and get it into the boiling pot as fast as possible.Only this method ensures that the kernels keep their ephemeral sweet taste and juiciness.Traditionally this has meant that people had to buy the corn at roadside stands or grow their own. Supermarkets -- with their bulk-buying practices and long distribution lines -- were left out of the loop.But this is changing.

Here is the way customers' allegiance to a food store ends, one familiar face after another.Mike DiSantostefano, followed by Bonnie Brown.Followed by LaVerne Krinkey, followed by Robin Wise.Followed by Lauren Bryant, followed by Diane Nixon, followed by 87 more of the old Farm Fresh employees, fellows from the produce section and women from the deli counter and cashiers who know you by name, Greenspring followed by Arbutus and Southview, followed by ...By whom? Well, mainly, followed by customers who loyally shop at places like Farm Fresh, or Metro Food Market, not only for the food, and not only for the prices, but for the people who work there year after year instead of standing out here the way they were the other day, on Smith Avenue in northwest Baltimore County, at the entrance to the Greenspring Shopping Center, where they marched around and carried signs.

3 Farm Fresh stores turned over to MetroThe saga over Farm Fresh Supermarkets of Maryland Inc., forced into bankruptcy amid allegations of fraud, continues to play out.Richfood Holdings Inc., the Richmond, Va.-based wholesaler that recently bought eight Farm Fresh stores for $6.75 million, has handed over operations of three of the groceries to a Richfood subsidiary, Metro Food Market.The three stores -- at Greenspring and Southview shopping centers and Arbutus Shopping Plaza -- will be remodeled with "state-of-the art produce, meat, seafood and deli/bakery concepts," said Metro Food Market President John Ryder.

On a November day in 1994, Jack Millman, a hulking figure with a shock of white hair and an imperious bearing, strode into the office of Jesse K. Swartz for a meeting that neither man relished.Ignoring their simmering feud, they exchanged pleasantries and moved into an adjoining conference room. Mr. Millman, the founder of Farm Fresh Supermarkets of Maryland Inc., appeared ill at ease. Mr. Swartz never enjoyed these rare encounters either. But as chief financial officer of wholesaler B. Green & Co., a partner in Farm Fresh, he had insisted on this meeting to find out how the Baltimore grocery chain was doing.

In the first move to dismantle scandal-ridden Farm Fresh Supermarkets of Maryland Inc., eight of the Baltimore chain's 10 supermarkets will be sold to Richfood Holdings Inc. for $6.75 million, pending court approval, documents show.The sale is not expected to affect an ongoing investigation by the court-appointed trustee operating Farm Fresh, which was forced into involuntary bankruptcy proceedings last month amid allegations of fraud involving more than $1 million. The FBI also is conducting a "preliminary inquiry" into the matter.