Supermarket

While most other big cities put national potato chip retailer Lay's at the top of their favorite list, Baltimoreans remain loyal to their regional brand. Utz leads locally with $28 million in supermarket sales in the Baltimore-Washington area, leaving Lay's in second place with $11 million, according to a Chicago company that studies food trends. Utz, produced in Hanover, Pa., is among such local favorites as Esskay bacon and Berger Cookies. And in this region, the chip has long been able to outsell Lay's potato chips, the national brand of behemoth Frito-Lay Inc. Lay's has successfully dominated the chip market in other cities throughout the country.

Your recent editorial expressed the view that "the ban on grocery store sales of alcohol has one purpose - preventing competition, to the benefit of existing retailers and to the detriment of consumers" ("Liquor and capitalism," May 14). Yet it also has the effect of de-emphasizing liquor to families shopping for food with hard-earned dollars. All the dollars, time and effort devoted to learning about, tasting, shipping, buying and imbibing alcohol may someday be directed toward more important things, such as wholesome food, good conversation, outdoor activities and the arts - and even reading newspapers.

Wegmans Food Markets has started hiring to fill about 250 full-time jobs for its new Columbia supermarket, which is set to open in mid-June, Wegmans announced Thursday. The grocer plans to hire 700 people total, including part-time workers, to staff the 145,000-square-foot store at Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road. It will be the fifth location in Maryland for the 79-store chain. Jobs will be available for cashiers and entry-level managers, as well as in the customer service and culinary and restaurant areas.

If you've shopped at a supermarket the last few years, you've probably come across the self-checkout lanes. You know, the ones where you're expected to do all the work yourself -- scanning, keying in codes, and usually bagging -- without getting paid or receiving a discount on your grocery items. These self-checkout lanes generally work well and efficiently if the customer has six items or fewer. But more than that -- such as a full cart -- and they become a customer service nightmare for many people I've seen (including myself)

Sponsored by the Learn to Live program of the Anne Arundel County Department of Health, educators will answer questions on nutrition and distribute free low-fat recipes at Graul's supermarket, 607 Taylor Ave., Annapolis, noon to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. March 26, 10 a.m to 3 p.m. March 27 and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 28.

Folks, usually on Tuesdays we feature a Naughty Business of the Week , some tale of a business or criminal that has managed to separate consumers from their money. But let's break from tradition today to consider this Hartford Courant story about a clerk at a Connecticut supermarket who prevented an elderly woman from getting scammed . An elderly woman approached to send $2,800 via Western Union, but some gentle probing revealed that the customer was sending money to someone impersonating her grandson.

Maryland State Police say they are continuing to investigate a phoned-in bomb threat to a supermarket north of Bel Air Wednesday. About 11:20 a.m., troopers from the Bel Air Barrack responded to Redner's Warehouse Market in the 2100 block of North Fountain Green Road for a report of a bomb threat, according to a state police news release. The supermarket is near the intersection of Routes 1 and 543 in Hickory, about 3 miles north of Bel Air. Management from the store informed police they received a phone call from a person who was attempting to reach a former employee, state police said.

A faded sign above the former Howard Park Super Pride store was gently lifted off the dilapidated vacant building with a crane Saturday, marking the start of construction of a new, long-awaited supermarket in the city. The Howard Park neighborhood, which is just south of Northern Parkway and borders Baltimore County to the west and the Forest Park Golf Course to the south, has been without a local grocery store for 12 years since the Super Pride was boarded up. Community leaders have worked with the city to bring back another grocer, but they've faced an uphill battle attracting developers, especially in poor economic times, while adjusting to several changes in political leadership.

There was romance among the rutabagas this afternoon in the Whole Foods grocery store, passion among the persimmons. Five singers from the Washington Opera's young artists program took to the aisles of the Harbor East market at 1001 Fleet St., disguised in the black aprons and black caps normally worn by employees of the market. A few minutes after 1 p.m., an announcement came over the store loudspeaker announcing that tickets to this weekend's Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert were being given away in the produce section.

Baltimore's Howard Park neighborhood could get a full-service Klein's ShopRite supermarket by late 2012 if Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake accepts a recommendation to sell city-owned land for the project. The Baltimore Development Corporation's directors voted in closed session Thursday to recommend that the city approve a land sale agreement with a Maryland group that wants to build the supermarket. The land is on Liberty Heights Avenue near Gwynn Oak Avenue. The development team selected after responding to a city-issued request for proposals is headed by Leonard Weinberg II of Vanguard Equities and businessman Roland Campbell.

Giant Food and Safeway, the Baltimore region's two largest supermarket chains, are recruiting temporary workers as contract negotiations continue with the union that represents 23,000 employees. The current agreement expires March 31. The companies said hiring additional staffing was standard during contract talks. Safeway said in a newspaper advertisement that it was seeking applications for temporary workers "due to a possible labor dispute. " "In the event of a work stoppage, we'll be able to keep our stores up and running and serve our customers," Giant spokesman Jamie Miller said Tuesday, noting that both grocers sought temporary workers during the last contract talks, in 2008.

Henry Hunt said goodbye to gluten not because a doctor told him to, but because — like so many others — he decided he was better off without it. "I diagnosed myself," he says, "because I'm really in tune with my body. " The Baltimore insurance salesman heartily endorsed his gluten-free diet recently while lunching at Sweet 27, a cafe that has similarly done away with the protein that's become the latest nutritional boogeyman — the new carb or fat or red meat. At the tiny Remington restaurant, the owner's wife says she can't tolerate gluten, the owner avoids it out of sympathy, and since working there, the cashier has decided that he must also be one of the people who can't eat it. By some estimates, as much as a quarter of the country has cut back on gluten or eliminated it altogether.

North Baltimore is losing the grocery store that replaced a Superfresh only seven months ago. The Fresh & Green's supermarket on 41 s t Street in the Hampden neighborhood will be acquired by Giant Foods. Giant will close its store in the nearby Rotunda shopping center and move to the 41 s t St. site, Giant announced Friday. The Fresh & Green's store on Harford Road in Parkville will also be acquired by Giant, the company said in a news release. Giant will acquire both Fresh & Green's stores from Mrs. Green's Management Corp.

The union that represents 17,000 workers at the region's two largest supermarket chains is embracing the "occupy" movement as it begins contract talks Wednesday. Anticipating difficult bargaining with Safeway and Giant Foods, the union has launched a website, occupygiantandsafeway.org, to build public support for its cause. The contract expires March 31. Tom McNutt, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400, said in a speech to union organizers last week that employees have worked hard over the last three decades to make the grocery chains highly profitable — while, he said, top executives are "making the Sheriff of Nottingham look like a saint.

Edward B. Lauer, co-founder with his wife of Lauer's Supermarket & Bakery in Anne Arundel County, whose motto was "Make the customer feel like a king and queen," died Monday of complications from Parkinson's disease at his Severna Park home. He was 85. "It was his passion and lifelong dream to own a supermarket," said a daughter, Bernadette L. Snoops of Millersville, who now operates the two supermarkets with her sister, Babette M. Poyer, who also lives in Millersville. The son of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. paymaster and a homemaker, Mr. Lauer was born in Baltimore and raised on Edmondson Avenue.

Wegmans Food Markets has started hiring to fill about 250 full-time jobs for its new Columbia supermarket, which is set to open in mid-June, Wegmans announced Thursday. The grocer plans to hire 700 people total, including part-time workers, to staff the 145,000-square-foot store at Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road. It will be the fifth location in Maryland for the 79-store chain. Jobs will be available for cashiers and entry-level managers, as well as in the customer service and culinary and restaurant areas.

A YEAR AGO, seven Baltimore neighborhoods unexpectedly lost their local supermarkets when a small chain went out of business. The situation was nothing short of calamitous; food is not a luxury but a necessity. Finally, the situation is getting better. A week ago, the City Council approved zoning changes that will permit a supermarket to be constructed in Waverly, at 33rd Street near Gorsuch Avenue. The very next day, a new store had a grand opening in Cherry Hill, ending a year-long void in that southern Baltimore community.

The union that represents 17,000 workers at the region's two largest supermarket chains is embracing the "occupy" movement as it begins contract talks Wednesday. Anticipating difficult bargaining with Safeway and Giant Foods, the union has launched a website, occupygiantandsafeway.org, to build public support for its cause. The contract expires March 31. Tom McNutt, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400, said in a speech to union organizers last week that employees have worked hard over the last three decades to make the grocery chains highly profitable — while, he said, top executives are "making the Sheriff of Nottingham look like a saint.

The shelves have been stocked and the cash registers tested for Wednesday's opening of Harris Teeter's upscale supermarket in Locust Point - part of a broader development push that is likely to bring Baltimore as much retail space as a regional shopping mall. Harris Teeter, offering hundreds of gourmet cheeses, curbside pickup of online orders and cafe seating on a balcony, will anchor the mixed-use McHenry Row development, one of several shopping centers being built or planned in the city.

A state appeals court has refused to revive a petition that would allow Howard County voters to weigh in on the zoning approval for a supermarket at a proposed shopping center in Turf Valley. The county's elections officials correctly decided that opponents of the supermarket failed to garner enough valid petition signatures needed to place the store's zoning approval on the ballot, a state appeals court ruled last week. The challenge to the 2008 zoning change was brought by the Howard County Citizens for Open Government.