Judiciary Committee fields comment on competition in the nation’s food industry
On behalf of the National Grocers Association (NGA), Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG) President and CEO David Smith gave testimony on unfair business practices impacting independent supermarkets at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on competition in the nation’s food industry.
In the Wednesday afternoon session, titled “Beefing up Competition: Examining America’s Food Supply Chain,” Smith spotlighted the actions of so-called grocery retail “power buyers.” Earlier this year, in a press conference and white paper, NGA explained how anticompetitive behavior by big-box and online grocery retailers is creating marked disadvantages for independent grocers in supply and pricing.
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Agreement comes as AWG hatches plans for ninth full-line division
Midwestern grocer Coborn’s is slated to shift to Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG) as its primary wholesale supplier starting next year.
Plans call for AWG to begin grocery shipments to St. Cloud, Minn.-based Coborn’s in January, the companies said. The supermarket chain will be served via AWG’s new Upper Midwest Division in St. Cloud, situated in the former Creative Memories warehouse facility in the city’s I-94 Business Park. Fresh and frozen products will be shipped temporarily from AWG’s Nebraska and Great Lakes Divisions.
The addition of Coborn’s dovetails with AWG’s plan to create a ninth full-line wholesale division. Later in 2022, Kansas City, Kan.-based AWG the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independent supermarkets expects to finish construction of a new fresh and frozen warehouse, at a location yet to be determined. The new facilities will provide more than 650,
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For decades, Americans have not needed to be concerned about food prices. Yes, prices would always go up by a little bit each year, but in general we have been extremely blessed for a very long time. Our supermarkets have always been packed with food, and we could always count on the fact that prices would be about the same a month or two down the road. Unfortunately, things are now changing, and not in a good way. A massive wave of inflation has hit agricultural commodities, and food producers have felt forced to pass those cost increases along to consumers.