SN'S FOOD RETAILING NEWS

David Merrefield

There's something new in the publishing universe this week: SN's Food Retailing News, a daily publication.

This doesn't mark the first time the SN Group of publications has grown. In recent years, SN has spun off two fellow publications: Brand Marketing and Fairchild's Executive Technology. The former started as a supplement to SN, and later became a freestanding publication mailed to its own distribution list. The latter has been hosted by several Fairchild publications, including SN, since its inception, but, effective next month, will also become a freestanding publication, also mailed to its own distribution list. Fairchild Publications is the parent company of all these journals, and numerous others.

But there is something quite different about the launch of the daily SN's Food Retailing News: There is no need to go to the mail box and poke around for it -- it's there right now, and as close as your desktop computer. FRN is an on-line only product, distributed at no charge to you via the Internet. You'll see a facsimile of the FRN web page inset into this column.

FRN evolved from SN's now-mature web presence. SN was early to the Internet. For several years SN editors have posted informational pages about each week's issue of SN, among several other features, including links to other Fairchild publications. SN remains on the web at WWW. supermarketnews.com with those features, although the entire presentation has been redesigned and updated. And now you're able to link to FRN off that same web address.

FRN is a name that acknowledges how widespread food retailing has become: It features daily news updates written by the reporting and editing staff of the three publications in the SN Group. FRN's news is about supermarkets, in the main, but also about any other channel of trade that does significant business in food retailing. The daily news items are brief, but complete. News will be posted daily; each morning by the start of business in the East, or at any time during the day as events require.

SN weekly will continue to be your central news source for in-depth news and analysis, whether about retailing, wholesaling or merchandising. But you probably will find that FRN is a useful source for an immediate take on what's happening today. Go to WWW. supermarketnews.com, take a look and let us know how you like it.