After nearly a year of testing, Amazon appears poised to offer a same-day grocery delivery service from major supermarkets in the US and Europe in the coming year, according to published reports. The company, which did not comment on the reports, currently offers delivery from Whole Foods Markets through its Flex service.

With the opening of several new locations, the Giant Co. has expanded its partnership with WOWorks, the parent company of several restaurants that offer healthy dining options. Two Giant sites in Pennsylvania now feature co-branded Saladworks and Frutta Bowls eateries, a third Giant store in the state recently opened a Saladworks restaurant and a fourth launched a Frutta Bowls store-within-a-store.

Carolyn Everson, who took over as president at Instacart on Sept. 7, is stepping down as head of the company. Everson joined the online delivery platform after 10 years at Facebook and did not elaborate on her reasons for leaving, saying in a Facebook post that she and Instacart CEO Fidji Simo "both agreed that this was the best decision for the company and for me personally."

ALDI will raise the price it pays for bananas after months of pressure from growers and exporters in Latin America who have faced rising costs. The Germany-based discount grocer, which has agreed to pay $1.02 more per kilogram starting next year, is Europe's biggest banana buyer and the price it sets for the fruit informs what other retailers are willing to pay.

Online grocery sales, driven by a 15% increase in the number of households buying groceries digitally, hit $8.6 billion in November, according to the Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey. The year-over-year numbers represent a 6% sales gain compared to 2020 and also show that a third of the most active online users each month were in the 30-44 age group.

Rick Cohen of C&S Wholesale Grocers spent almost 15 years quietly creating a robotics company called Symbotic that recently signed Walmart as its biggest customer and today announced plans to go public in a merger with a Softbank-sponsored special-purpose acquisition company. Walmart, which invested in the SPAC merger, will use Symbotic's robots in 25 of its 42 regional distribution centers, and Symbotic's other retail partners include C&S, Albertsons and Target.

Texas A&M University has launched a four-year initiative that aims to design innovative spraying and dipping systems and food coatings to bolster microbial safety during harvesting in agriculture. "This project will lead to the creation of a safer and more affordable food supply and enhance quality of life by reducing the risk of foodborne illness associated with specialty crop food and food products," said lead project researcher Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, Ph.D.

Through Sunday, shoppers at Schnuck Markets can round up at the register to help victims of the recent tornado outbreak in the South and Midwest. The donation campaign is in partnership with the American Red Cross and joins other similar relief efforts at Dollar General and at the Casey's General Stores convenience store chain.

FMI recently hosted a discussion featuring Ratio Institute, a nonprofit focused on achieving sustainable food retailing through expert collaboration, industry resources and practical tools. The discussion was designed to provide members of our sustainability community information on operational sustainability. Catrina Damrell, engagement manager with Ratio Institute, framed the conversation with a discussion around consumer interest in sustainability and how small changes can have big results. Read more.

This series of infographics explains how key ingredients in an American classic -- the peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- are impacted by current disruptions to raw materials production, packaging, transportation and labor. These infographics are formatted to be easily shared on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to help educate your customers on why they might be seeing limited supplies of these popular products. Download them now.