News Briefs

Southern California independent Erewhon has launched a redesigned mobile app.

“We’ve built a native shopping experience directly into our mobile app, blending both our grocery and café segments of the business,” explained Kabir Jain, chief growth officer at Los Angeles-based Erewhon. “The new Erewhon mobile app has been fully reimagined and designed with the intention of naturally extending the feeling of shopping in an Erewhon store right onto the phone. We’ve layered an innovative browsing experience and clean aesthetic, with several new shopping features to create the most seamless shopping journey possible.”

[Read more: "Erewhon Invests in Growth of Coconut Company"]

The app’s new features include the following:

• Curated Homepage: thoughtfully selected rotating products, categories and promotions
• Intelligent Product Search: users have most accurate and fastest results
• Product Recommendations: contextually relevant AI-generated suggestions
• One-Click Reorder: users can easily reorder their favorite items with a single click
• Dynamic Prep Time: dynamic adjustment of order prep time based on unique counts of prepared versus picked items in the cart, for fast service
• Shopping List: users can save their favorite items for later
• Rotating Prepared Foods and Modifiers: rotating daily specials that match the café’s offerings, and easily modified prepared foods and drinks, with hundreds of options
• Real-Time Order Tracker: users can monitor their live order status (pickup in as short a time as 15 minutes, and delivery in 30 minutes)
• Integrated Membership Program: available throughout the ordering process
• Dynamic Merchandising: best products delivered during the browsing experience

The grocer’s new app has rolled out across the iOS and Android platforms, with the features also available on Erewhon’s website.

Erewhon operates nine stores in the Los Angeles area. A 10th is coming this fall to Pasadena, Calif.

Food Network Angels, a 501(c)3 charity dedicated to feeding underserved families in southwest Ohio, has joined forces with e-commerce platform eGrowcery to provide needy customers with an online ordering option. Food Network Angels is building a digital store that includes SNAP payment.

“The purpose of Food Network Angels is to make feeding the hungry and undernourished more dignified,” said Wendy Schuchmann, founder and CEO of Owens, Ohio-based Food Network Angels. “Working with eGrowcery will help us accomplish that goal by removing much of the friction involved with ordering and receiving food and related necessities.” 

[Read More: “eGrowcery Platform Helps Retailers Accept EBT SNAP”]

The online grocery platform is providing technology to Food Network Angels at a reduced total cost to support the cause alleviating food insecurity, including an annual donation to the organization.

“Our Food Network Angels partnership is an excellent example of how eGrowcery can do its part to help serve the undernourished,” noted Patrick Hughes, CEO of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based eGrowcery. “Our solution will help Wendy and her team provide more access and groceries to more families. This is a very nice win for all involved.”  

Stanley Mazepa has been appointed president and CEO (USA) at Fairfield, Conn.-based Carl Brandt Inc., an importer and distributor of German food products. Mazepa succeeds Susanne Settineri, who, with her father, was involved in the founding of the company in 1989 and key to its success. A 30-year veteran of the food industry, Mezepa will continue Settineri’s work developing exclusive European brands as she transitions to retirement.

“Carl Brandt Inc. will be further solidified as a leading expert in developing imported brands and providing world-class services to manufacturers in terms of efficiency, expertise and relationships in the industry,” noted Mazepa. 

[Read More: “Baldor Specialty Foods President to Retire”]

“We stand by Stanley Mazepa and all the employees in Fairfield as a competent partner and look forward to supporting a strong team with our extensive expertise from the European market,” said Jan Dominik Gunkel, CEO of the Brandt Zwieback-Schokoladen Group, which provides support to Carl Brandt Inc. 

From baked goods and confectionery to canned goods, beverages and other specialty products, Carl Brandt Inc. offers an extensive assortment that appeals to the needs and preferences of a broad consumer base.

Harps Food Stores, Inc. is adding to its portfolio with the acquisition of an independent market in Louisiana. The employee-owned Harps is taking over Janise's Supermarket in the town of Sunset in St. Landry Parish.

“We are thrilled to welcome Janise's Supermarket into the Harps Food Stores family. This acquisition aligns perfectly with our strategic growth plans and allows us to expand our footprint in Louisiana. We are committed to honoring Janise's Supermarket's legacy and serving the Sunset community with the same level of excellence they have come to expect,” said Kim Eskew, chairman and CEO of Harps.

[Read more: "Brookshire Grocery Sells Its Pharmacies to Walgreens"]

Store employees will be kept on, according to the grocers.  “We firmly believe that this partnership will be immensely beneficial to the residents of Sunset, Louisiana, and the surrounding area," said Michael Dwayne Janise of Janise’s. "As an ESOP company, we are delighted to offer our employees a remarkable opportunity for career growth in the grocery industry. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our valued customers and dedicated employees for their unwavering support and patronage throughout our 49-year journey.”

Founded in 1930, Harps runs 146 stores across Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana and Kansas.

Grocery stores in North Carolina will offer a new service for shoppers this fall. The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is set to install kiosks in supermarkets and other places around the state in an effort to reduce physical visits to DMV offices.

The pilot program will allow drivers to, among other things, print license-plate renewal stickers.

[Read more: “Dollar General Testing Checkout-Free Operations in North Carolina”]

"They go to the grocery store and order their DMV service, their renewals or whatever it may be, while they're shopping for groceries," said Wayne Goodwin, North Carolina’s DMV commissioner. 

The new kiosks come after months of complaints from the public over poor customer service at the DMV, reported The Carolina Journal. The state agency has received growing customer complaints from drivers who are waiting months for an appointment. The backlog has led to hours-long lines and frustrated drivers across the state. The long wait times are attributed to a shortage of workers and not enough people using online services.

Other states currently using the DMV kiosks include Virginia, Georgia, Indiana, California, Colorado and Nevada.

There will be a transaction fee to use the kiosks, which would cover their costs.

Wynshop, a provider of digital commerce and fulfillment solutions for local store-based retailers, is now a USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) -approved SNAP/EBT payments processing partner, through Aurus. The company can now facilitate expedited processing of FNS procedures for any retailers that wish to offer EBT benefits through Wynshop.

As online grocery has grown in popularity, the FNS has worked to expand access to EBT payments via online grocers, but the certification process is complex and time-consuming, which has limited the ability of smaller food retailers to fully connect with these customers.

[Read More:  “Tops Adopts EBT SNAP Online on Flashfood App Via Forage”]

“Until now, when grocers wanted to accept online EBT benefits, they had to go through a grueling approval process with FNS that could take months,” noted Barry Clogan, chief product evangelist at Miami-based Wynshop. “We’ve set things up so that they no longer need to do any of the heavy lifting. When a grocer on the Wynshop platform decides that they want to accept EBT payments, we provide them with easy-to-use templates that reduce both friction and time to approval.”

The FNS must review and approve any solution that enables online payments using SNAP/EBT. To streamline the application process for retailers, Wynshop collaborated with FNS for six months to create a procedure and documentation templates that grocers can customize for their EBT applications. FNS’ subsequent approval of Wynshop’s EBT/SNAP solution and methodology for retailers is poised to dramatically reduce the time, cost and complexity of this process for grocers.

Wynshop’s mission is to give SNAP beneficiaries access to more choices, and local grocers a greater share of government subsidy dollars, helping these retailers grow their online businesses and bolster their relationships with loyal customers.