By PRNewswire The distilled spirits industry continued its impressive 18 straight years of growth, rising 2.0% in 2015 to 215.9 million 9-liter cases. Employment gains and wage increases have led to increased consumption of premium, quality products at home and on-premise. According to the Beverage Information Group’s Liquor Handbook 2016, consumers are spending more and…
By Donna Harris // Oil Price Information Less than half of small and mid-sized bricks-and-mortar retailers of all types accept chip cards at indoor point-of-sale terminals, even a year after the credit card networks’ liability shift, according to a survey this month from The Strawhecker Group. Gas stations and other merchants had to adopt technology…
By Paula Gardner // MLive Michigan’s packaged liquor sales reached a new plateau in 2015, topping the $1 billion mark in wholesale purchases by retailers. Leading the pack were chain stores – notably Meijer Inc., based near Grand Rapids – which now account for 15 percent of wholesale liquor buys across the state. Sales of packaged liquor, which is…
By Patrick A. Kelley, SNAP Program Analyst This is an important announcement regarding the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Online Purchasing Pilot Request for Volunteers (RFV) published on September 15, 2016. The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is pleased to announce that we have received confirmation that additional Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Host Processors intend…
By Jackie Borchardt // cleveland.com Ohio’s minimum hourly wage will increase 5 cents next year because of inflation. Non-tipped workers must be paid at least $8.15 an hour and tipped workers $4.08 an hour starting Jan. 1, 2017. The wage increase reflects an increase in the Consumer Price Index, which rose .7 percent in the…
Since the October 2015 liability shift, EMV remains frustrating for retailers and confusing for consumers—not a good proposition leading up to the next liability shift in October 2017 NACS Online One year after the October 2015 liability shift took effect for retailers to accept Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) chip cards inside the store, thousands of…
San Francisco federal judge allows a class-action lawsuit brought by retailers over new chip card readers to proceed against credit card companies Bloomberg News reports that Visa, MasterCard and American Express lost an early round of a lawsuit alleging that the card companies colluded to stick fraudulent transactions on merchants who did not meet the…
U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin and Rep. Peter Welch discuss the real reasons why banks are now pushing for debit swipe fee reform U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) wrote an op-ed this week to highlight the benefits of debit swipe fee reforms enacted more than six years ago, as well as…
A bill cleared the House yesterday that would extend the rule beyond the December 1 deadline The House of Representatives finally took some action related to the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule set to take effect on December 1st, but unfortunately their move is unlikely to be matched by the Senate. Among the bills…
SpartanNash is proud to be the first food distributor in Michigan to sign Migrant Legal Aid’s Fair Food Pledge, affirming our commitment to fair labor practices for the state’s more than 94,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families. The Fair Food Pledge exemplifies SpartanNash’s commitment to corporate responsibility and upholding best-in-class standards for the treatment…