Bloggers Appear at Shows

CAROL ANGRISANI

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Lowes Food Stores' official bloggers have hit the road to give consumers tips on how to cook affordable, easy meals.

Members of the retailer's “Smart Shoppers” team have appeared at women's shows and other community events.

The four-person panel includes both Lowes employees and consumers. Amal Wood and Andrea Everhart are stay-at-home mothers, while Cindy Silver is Lowes' corporate nutritionist and Billy Parisi is a chef and culinary spokesman for Lowes.

Last week, Wood, Everhart and Parisi spoke at the Southern Women's Show in Charlotte; on Sept. 16, both Everhart and Wood presented at the “Moms @ Work” event in Greensboro to share affordable, easy-to-prepare meal ideas; Sept. 14, Wood and Everhart appeared at a local radio station to discuss ways to save time and money; and on Sept. 9, both women spoke at the “Moms @ Work” luncheon in Charlotte.

“I've had so much fun meeting everyone,” Everhart wrote on the Lowes Facebook page after attending the Southern Women's Show. “For every tip I share, I get twofold back. Lowes Foods shoppers rock!”

Lowes launched the team late last year to help shoppers make the most of their food-shopping experience. Members write weekly blogs and provide recipe suggestions, money-saving ideas and suggestions of other websites to visit.

Parisi, who is also culinary spokesman for Heinen's Grocery Stores and Sears Holdings, creates videos showing how sale items can be used to make simple yet elegant recipes. He also creates food and wine-pairing videos.

On the Lowesfoods.com website, shoppers can read Parisi's blogs and get links to his website, Facebook page, and Twitter and YouTube accounts.

Likewise, the Lowes website contains links to Wood's favorite websites, which include realsimple.com and supermarketguru.com.

Panel members are also active on Lowes' Twitter account. Silver, for instance, hosted a Twitter party last week for a chance to win recipe books, a free nutrition consultation and a $25 Lowes Foods gift card.

Store Tour Turns 15

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Lowes Food Stores has begun the 15th school year of its “Be A Smart Shopper” field trip program for elementary schoolchildren.

More than 200,000 students have toured Lowes' stores since the inception of the program.

The theme of this year's tour is “What's For Dinner?”, which encourages students to think about smart shopping for healthy family dinners at home.

This year's tour also helps students learn about NuVal, a nutritional scoring system recently implemented at Lowes Foods Stores.