NEWSWATCH 1999-05-17

Publix Super Markets, Lakeland, Fla., said it would buy nine of 34 Atlanta-area stores from A&P, Montvale, N.J. Publix operates 78 stores in the Atlanta area. It said it expects to complete the transaction by May 27. A&P said late last month it would exit the Atlanta market by selling or closing its 34 stores there. An A&P spokesman told SN last week the chain has signed definitive agreements for the sale of five additional stores but declined to pinpoint who will buy them. It is continuing to seek buyers for the other 20 units, he said.

UFCW LOCAL 1360 members have ratified a new five-year contract with Acme Markets that headed off a threatened strike. The local is based in West Berlin, N.J. The contract, covering 10,000 workers at 35 Acme stores in southern New Jersey and northern Pennsylvania, was ratified by a vote of 837-124 last Monday, a few hours before a midnight strike deadline.

PILLSBURY, Minneapolis, said the entire production capacity of its plant in Wellston, Ohio, was devoted for one day earlier this month to producing product to be used to feed needy families. Production consisted of more than 67,000 bags of pizza rolls to be distributed in Logan, Ohio; Battle Creek, Mich., and Elizabethtown, Ky. Distribution was by means of food banks run by Second Harvest, Chicago. The agency distributes some 1 billion pounds of donated food and grocery product annually.

FOOD INDUSTRY CRUSADE AGAINST HUNGER, Washington, said three trustees have been elected to its board. They are Claire D'Amour, vice president, Big Y Foods, Springfield, Mass.; Don F. Hazlett, H.Z., Inc., Lawrence, Kan., and Richard Alleger, vice president, magazine division, Rodale Press, Emmaus, Pa. FICAH funds self-help hunger-alleviation programs domestically and in 65 other countries.

RETAIL CLERKS AND MEATCUTTERS in United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7R, based in Denver, are continuing to vote this week on whether to ratify new five-year labor agreements with Safeway and Kroger Co.'s King Soopers in Colorado. The existing three-year contracts will expire July 10. Union members at Albertson's agreed in February to accept new five-year contracts, and after being contacted by a federal mediator, negotiators for King Soopers and Safeway agreed to present a similar offer to their combined membership of 17,000. Voting was set last Friday in Denver, where 76% of Local 7's membership is located; a management spokesman told SN the Denver voting is likely to set the tone for subsequent votes in Pueblo Wednesday, northern Colorado Thursday, Colorado Springs Friday (where contracts for clerks expire July 10 and meatcutters Aug. 21) and the western slope (covering Safeway and Kroger's City Markets division) next Monday. Terms of the contract were not revealed.