CLEVELAND -- Retailers turned out in force for the 2001 edition of the Food Marketing Institute's Energy and Technical Services Conference held here last month. A central topic was the energy crisis, how it reached a critical stage in California and what supermarkets in other parts of the country can learn from it. Presentations also focused on food safety and on how the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program is being extended to supermarkets. A tour of the General Electric Lighting Institute in Cleveland, as well as nearby stores of Giant Eagle and Heinens, were planned, but canceled along with the last day of the conference because of the tragic terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
