The Columbia Heights Giant has responded to the voice (i.e. rage) of the people. Lydia DePillis over at Washington City Paper has the scoop that Giant has promised to open all 19 cash registers from 4-8 pm at its perpetually swamped Park and 14th NW location. Further, anyone who catches a lane closed at the store during that timeframe is entitled to a rotisserie chicken. A great victory for the many aggrieved shoppers who have noted the achingly long lines at this particular Giant.

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Bad news for shoppers who want to purchase their tampons/condoms/embarrassingly large tub of Cheese Balls discreetly—the customer self-checkout lane could be on the way to extinction.

The Food Marketing Institute found only 16 percent of grocery transactions were done at self-checkout lanes in 2010, down from a high of 22 percent three years ago. Customers reported higher satisfaction with the shopping experience when they went through traditional checkout lanes. Several regional chains have taken note and begun phasing out the self-serve lanes, including Northeastern grocer Big Y Foods and Albertsons.

The AP reports that Big Y announced the phase-out after an internal study uncovered problems with the machines: delays due to coupon confusion and payment; intentional and accidental theft; and misidentifying produce and baked goods. Several local-grocery observers have noted our region’s problems with the self-checkout, including “unbelievably sensitive” yet “habitually unresponsive” machines that have brought even employees to tears or “the verge of homicide.”

The self-checkout came on the grocery scene 10 years ago, heralded as a high-tech way to serve customers better and reduce staffing costs. Industry experts say the self-checkout isn’t dead, but they probably no longer define the future of supermarkets. “I don’t think this is as much a referendum on the technology as much as it is a match between the technology and the customer base,” says John Stanton, professor of food marketing at St. Joseph’s University.

The Market Report is awaiting word from several local chains to hear their plans for self-service checkouts and will update with their responses. In the meantime, enjoy buying laxatives in the privacy of the self-checkout lane while you can.

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In the German magazine Der Spiegel, Starbucks CEO Horward Schultz revealed his grand plan to expand the company’s grocery offerings.

“In the next 12 to 19 months, we will be unveiling new products and entirely new categories,” Schultz said. “I can’t tell you with specificity what it is, but we’re going to build a major multibillion-dollar business in the grocery industry for Starbucks, both domestically and around the world.”

And at an annual shareholders meeting today, Schultz declared that the consumer packaged-goods business “as we know it today will rival the success of our Starbucks retail business.” In 2010, Starbucks’ global consumer packaged-goods business brought in $707.4 million, a fraction of the company’s total $10.7 billion revenues. That’s a lot of catch-up, but Starbucks has been moving toward grocery expansion for months—in March, it split with long-time grocery distribution partner Kraft, which gave Starbucks more control over packaged coffee sales in the supermarket.

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Two years ago, Austin resident Carla Crownover gave up grocery stores. She didn’t hate supermarkets—on the contrary, she loved grocery shopping on Saturday mornings—but she wanted to change the way she ate. “The whole thing was about the food,” says Crownover, a part-time litigation paralegal and co-owner of Austin Urban Gardens. “What I ate and where it came from and where it lived. The whole thing was an objection to industrial agriculture.”

For two years, Crownover kept up her no-grocery experiment, limiting her food acquisition to farmers markets, farms, and her own garden. She picked up toilet paper at CVS and learned to eat only seasonal produce. She gave up her beloved prepared foods and buffet at Whole Foods. When the desire for certain fruits in the off-season became too strong, she took up canning.

“It was very odd for the first few months,” Crownover says. “It took a lot to get used to. I went the first week without milk for my coffee and no idea where I was going to get it." She knew that some people found her choices peculiar, but she came to love the new lifestyle.

Crownover set foot in a grocery store a few times during her hiatus, mostly because canning required sugar, and sugar can’t be sourced locally in Texas. Crownover says those two visits to the store gave her a little bit of grocery envy. The fruits and vegetables, gleaming and beautiful, weakened her resolve.

“I could see all the gorgeous produce that wasn’t in season that I would have to wait for,” she says. “I felt like I could almost be lured back.”

Last weekend, she did go back. Not because she’d had a change of heart about her all-local grocery diet, but because she was hosting a birthday cocktail party and needed a ton of fresh-squeezed lemon and grapefruit juice. So Crownover hopped into her car and headed over to Central Market in Austin. And she encountered hell.

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Barb Melera and her husband, Peter, decided to buy the D. Landreth Seed Company eight years ago when they learned that the tiny but storied operation was about to close up shop. Despite an illustrious history and roots dating back to 1784, Landreth’s business was hopelessly outdated and on the verge of death. Barb Melera says there was no interest from anyone to buy the company. “Nobody stepped up except two nitwits,” she says. “That would be me and my husband.”

With a combination of loans and their own money, the Meleras scooped up the New Freedom, Pa.-based company. “We felt very strongly that it was a part of American history that needed to be saved,” she says by telephone. “It’s the quintessential American business. Just like we treasure things like our great houses, like Monticello and Mount Vernon, we felt it was important to preserve a great American business.”

A lovely notion, and the Meleras very nearly pulled it off. For eight years, the couple worked to modernize Landreth. The company owned no computers when they took over. Accounting was done on index cards; seed labels were typed on a typewriter. She says every piece of Landreth’s ancient equipment broke within the first six weeks.

But the couple was in love with the history of the seed company, the first in America. Landreth was the first to introduce zinnias to the U.S., in 1798. In 1811, the company debuted white-flesh potatoes, replacing the unpopular yellow potatoes that had previously reigned. And in 1826, Landreth introduced Bloomsdale spinach, the modern spinach we eat today. The charming lineage made the risk worth it for the Meleras, even though the company had been greatly diminished over the centuries.

The new owners managed to turn Landreth back to profitability—the company made a profit in 2010 and Melera says it should again in 2011—partly based on the growing national interest in heirloom seeds, which Landreth specializes in, and on a bit of nostalgia. The company went from a customer base of about 350 to nearly 4,000.

Despite the return to profitability, the D. Landreth Seed Company is once again on its last legs. One lender has called in her $250,000 loan to the company, and the Meleras are scrambling to pay it back. Behind that noteholder are more, and at least one other is ready to sue if the debt isn’t repaid, Melera says.

And what is Landreth’s grand plan to raise the money? Sell seed catalogues. One million of them. This month. Landreth sold 50,000 all year last year.

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Anyone who’s ever been cornered at a party by a grocery fanatic from upstate New York knows that Wegmans has rabidly devoted shoppers. The nearly 100-year-old supermarket has earned the outspoken admiration of Alec Baldwin’s mom, lots of people on the Internet, and now Michael Hess of BNet, who declares the chain the “best company in the world.”

Strong statement, Hess acknowledges, but not misplaced. “The truth is, I don’t know how a company could be better,” he writes. What makes Wegmans so amazing in Hess’ mind?

1. Wegmans makes nearly $6 billion a year and is one of only a few hundred private companies in the U.S. reach the $1 billion mark.

2. Wegmans is nice to its workers, landing on those “Best Places to Work” lists yearly and offering scholarship assistance to employees.

3. Fancy displays, unique features, and lots of eat-in options have made Wegmans a destination grocery store.

4. Wegmans stays ahead of the curve on grocery trends, adopting bar codes, customer loyalty cards, and “buy local” before the competition.

5. Wegmans plays nice with the community. Philanthropy, involvement, donating rare lobsters, etc. means no one protests the opening of a Wegmans.

Ok, fine points, Michael Hess, and you don’t even mention the sandwiches. Even the Internet, where there’s someone to hate everything, offers little resistance to your argument—two sad little Facebook groups claim to “HATE Wegmans” but have garnered a combined four comments, two by the same guy. But the Market Report will offer you one irrefutable counterpoint to Wegmans’ perfection: lousy recipes.

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Thursday night, the Zoning Commission approved redevelopment of the Petworth (aka “Stinky” or “Sixties”) Safeway. The property at 3830 Georgia Ave. NW is now zoned for a mixed-use, five-story residential project, anchored by a brand-new Safeway.

The proposed 62,000 square-foot Safeway will have 86 below-grade parking spaces and a look reminiscent of the CityVista Safeway. (Co-owner Duball also worked on that store.) Going into last night’s meeting, the project had the 9-1 support of the ANC 4C. Duball president Marc Dubick tells DCmud that construction should take 18 months and will commence in nine months.

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Making the rounds on the Internet: an interesting, if dubious, account of how Whole Foods weaves a spell around shoppers, enticing them to buy more. Among the “tricks” Martin Linstrom, author of Brandwashed, delineates: arranging flowers at the entrance to give a sense of freshness and delicacy; chalkboard signage designed to look like road-side produce signs; and only displaying bananas of a particular hue. Linstrom suggests that Whole Foods stacks produce in specially created display crates designed to “evoke the image of Grapes of Wrath-era laborers piling box after box of fresh fruit into the store,” all in a grand effort to charm customers into buying more.

All interesting ideas, but not necessarily accurate and certainly not limited to Whole Foods. Linstrom says Dole advises grocers to display the fruit when it’s Pantone color 12-0752, as the shade sells better—except Whole Foods doesn’t sell Dole bananas. The P Street store, for instance, sources organic and conventional bananas from Costa Rica through its own Whole Trade program. Other points from Linstrom’s research, like the fresh-flowers shtick and sprinkling produce with water, apply to plenty of other local grocers. (I was greeted with fresh orchids last time I walked into the Sexy Safeway.)

Besides, who cares if Whole Foods seduces shoppers with attractive signage? There are no sirens atop the Clarendon store, luring unwilling shoppers inside. People go there with the intent to purchase, so what’s the big deal if the store goes the extra mile to enhance the shopping experience?

Give me the fresh flowers, I say. If it makes me buy more arugula, so be it.

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Tim Carman of the Washington Post has us worried that Eataly, the massive Italian food world occupying 40,000 square feet on New York’s Fifth Avenue, might not be expanding to D.C. after all. It was previously reported that Eataly could land in D.C. as early as 2012.

Carman spoke with restauranteur and Eataly owner Mario Batali, who said he was not willing to downsize the grocery/wine bar/restaurant/Italian bonanza that is Eataly. “I think to go and do it right in D.C., it has to be the same size,” Batali told Carman. “I don’t want to do it smaller.” Concerned that Batali has yet to sign a lease for a D.C. outpost, Carman made some calls and got some bad news.

One commercial real estate broker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Carman that Eataly is a no go for D.C. “As I understand it, they’re not coming,” a broker said. “I specifically spoke with somebody involved with them… They came down and took a look around and didn’t see anything they like.” A second broker told him, “I don’t know if they’ve seen anything that really gets them excited.”

Perhaps the difficulty in finding a home for Eataly in D.C. isn’t surprising. 30,000 square-foot spaces, all on one floor, aren’t exactly on every corner of the District. Carman promises more details.

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After a successful test run in select New York stores, 7-Eleven will start stocking special vegan items in more than 100 stores in four states, reports Veg News. Among the options for the animally disinclined: entrée-sized takeout portions of linguine tikka masala, pad Thai, and spinach noodles with vegetables. This is, of course, in addition to the “accidentally vegan” items 7-Eleven already carries, including the store-brand fudge mint cookies and apple danishes.

No love for D.C., Maryland, or Virginia vegans—the vegan expansion is for now limited to Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.

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D.C. renters can now experience the Whole Foods lifestyle 24/7 in the comfort of The Residences on the Avenue apartments. The units, located directly above the new Whole Foods in Foggy Bottom, offer easy access to the wonders of Icelandic lamb and coconut water in addition to the silliest apartment website known to man.

The Avenue Living site contains all the details necessary to make a $3,300-a-month studio apartment seem like a fair price. “A sense of style infused with an equal sense of environmental awareness” is promised. Residents can expect “two-tone paints in Sail Cloth and Trusty Tan.” They are guaranteed “a life you won’t find in a West End apartment or even a Georgetown apartment.”

Perhaps most significantly, occupants of that $4,100 one-bedroom or $6,600 two-bedroom will have access to Washington social-scene secrets, provided by The Avenue Living blog. “Are you bored with the main stream nightclubs in the DC area?” it asks. “Do you want a ‘secret spot’ of your own?” This apartment building has the answer: the Black Cat. “This is no normal, run-of-the-mill nightclub,” Avenue Living promises. “Bands from all over the world come and play at Black Cat including Little Dragon, an electronic Swedish music band whose song ‘Twice’ was featured in Season 5 of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.” You aren’t going to find that kind of exclusive tip at an apartment above the Safeway.

So if you seek organic produce within a 100-foot radius, Sail Cloth and Trusty Tan color schemes, and insider information on little-known venues like the Black Cat, The Residences on the Avenue might be for you. The three-bedroom with den priced at $11,000 is still available.

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Any regular reader of women’s magazines has had it drilled into her head that she should be eating whole grains. Recipes urge us to eat that hummus and cucumber combo on a whole-wheat pita. Toast should be made with whole grains. We’re told to consume that brownish spaghetti that tastes like cardboard because its whole grains will give us fiber, or make us healthy, or something or other. It’s whole grains this and whole grains that, and every time I fix a pimento cheese sandwich on white, I hear Real Simple scolding me. And now it’s Whole Grains Month: 30 days of additional guilt for sometimes preferring white to whole-grain bread.

Well, ladies aged 12 and up, feel guilt no more: you are supposed to be eating at least some white bread. It’s one of the easiest ways to get your daily dosage of folic acid, which health agencies say is a must for all women of child-bearing age. The vitamin is crucial to the development of a baby’s spine during pregnancy—so crucial, that a mother’s deficiency of folic acid before pregnancy can lead to devastating neural tube defects in babies. Resulting conditions like spina bifida and anencephaly (a condition in which the brain is not properly formed or partially missing) are so serious that the FDA mandated folic acid fortification in all enriched grains in 1998.

It happens that 95 percent of all white flour produced in the U.S. is enriched, says Judi Adams, president of both the Grain Foods Foundation and the Wheat Foods Council. That means that almost any white bread available on your grocery shelf will contribute to the 400 micrograms of folic acid women should be getting every day. Adams says it’s not enough to start taking folic acid, or folate, as it is also called, when you’re pregnant—a baby’s spinal cord is formed during the first three weeks of pregnancy, before most women even know they’re expecting. Because half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, health agencies recommend a good dosage of folic acid for any female of child-bearing age.

The mandate has reduced neural tube birth defects by one third since going into effect. (Canada, which implemented a similar law, has seen a 50 percent reduction.) Adams points out that it’s not just babies who have been saved by the fortification of white flour—an estimated $4.7 billion in direct medical costs has been saved.

Whole grains remain an important source of nutrition, but they have less than half the folic acid that white flour has. Currently, the FDA does not permit the fortification of whole grains, despite petitioning by the American Bakers Association to reverse course. The FDA allows fortification of whole-grain cereals, for some reason, but not bread. Adams says she suspects the FDA is concerned about overfortification, particularly for populations like children and the elderly, who don’t need folic acid the way women of child-bearing age do.

“Whole grains are wonderful, but they’re not the whole story,” says Adams. She recommends servings of both whole grains and enriched grains, plus leafy green vegetables, beans, and legumes, all of which provide folic acid. So eat that white bread with a clear conscience, woman of child-bearing age, because it’s good for you and any future babies’ spinal cords. Plus it just tastes better with certain sandwiches: “Peanut butter and jelly,” says Adams, “and sometimes turkey.”

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Lydia DePillis at Washington City Paper has the latest in the saga over the site of a proposed Walmart in Ward 4. After a week of accusations that Walmart's developer for the site, Foulger-Pratt, was conducting demolition without a permit, it turned out that an application had been filed--but with the wrong address. Seemed like Walmart was in the clear to raze the Car Barn, which sits on the site on upper Georgia Avenue, until, that is, opponents moved to get the building declared a landmark.

In a last-minute effort to halt Walmart's march on the neighborhood, Verna Collins of Walmart opposition group Ward 4 Thrives has submitted a landmark application for the Car Barn. The building has been a source of contention previously, with the D.C Preservation League fighting to save the century-old brick facility. Walmart smoothed things over by promising to include architectural elements and materials from the building into the new store.

Now that the landmark application has been submitted, however, Walmart's raze permit can't even be considered--the former trumps the latter. Now the raze permit can't be approved until the Historic Preservation Board considers Collins' application during their meeting in late October.

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School’s back in session, and that means the children need cash for all the books/field trips/music/arts programs that school districts around the country have been inclined to cut. Several local grocery chains make it easy for you to contribute to the school(s) of your choice by donating a percentage of your purchase payment. You have to use your store rewards card, and yes, that means they are tracking what you buy and possibly storing all this information for some nefarious purpose, but 4th Amendment rights violations are a small price to pay to help the children.

All of these programs require you to relink your store loyalty card every year. Here’s where to do it:

Giant
Between Oct. 7 and March 29, 2012, you earn one point for each dollar spent and triple points for any Healthy Idea labeled item. Customers can support up to three schools.

Harris Teeter
Until May 31, designate up to five schools to receive a percentage of your purchases with your VIC card

Safeway (through eScrip)
Up to 4 percent of purchases go to your designated schools (up to three). Safeway asks schools to designate 20 percent of their earnings to nutrition and fitness.

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Photo: Creative Tools/flickr

Local grocer MOMs Organic Market has made the move to LED lightbulbs, Washington Business Journal reports. The switch from regular, incandescent bulbs cost the market $40,000, but the company says they'll cut electricity use by 75 percent and make the money back in less than two years.

All seven of the region's MOMs stores were outfitted with the more environmentally friendly lightbulbs. Electricity use is expected to drop from 61,000 watts annually to under 17,000 to the tune of $21,000 of savings a year. The move is not expected to affect the stores' electric-car charging stations, so the 20 people in this region who drive electric cars can rest easy.

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The idea of getting a deal on organic aseptic coconut milk and quinoa sent the Internet into an absolute tizzy this morning. Nearly 200,000 Washingtonians had snapped up today's spend-$10-get-$20 at Whole Foods deal on LivingSocial as of 9:30 this morning. But what can this little deal actually get you? Some potential $20 purchases:

Pounds of wild-caught Canadian snow crab legs: 1.53

Bottles of Slice of Life adult chewy multivitamins: 1

Pounds of organic jewel yams: 8.7

Cans of Zevia diet soda: 3

Packages of organic chevre fleurie: 3

Pounds of domestic wild-caught haddock fillet: 1.81

Organic fig bars: 5

Pounds of wild-caught shell-on shrimp: 1.05

Emails imploring you to buy the LivingSocial deal so your friend can get hers for free: COUNTLESS

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Photo: USDA/flickr

Federal food safety officials announced today that six strains of E. coli bacteria are hereby banned from the ground beef supply. The elimination of the six toxic strains, which have shown up increasingly in the food supply, was opposed by many in the meat industry, the New York Times reports.

E. coli 0157:H7 is the strain most associated with food-borne illness—the pathogen caused a major outbreak in 1994 that sickened hundreds, killed four children, and was subsequently banned. More recently, scientists have identified six additional, lesser-known forms of E. coli that have been making people sick. Not among these six strains is the highly virulent strain that sickened thousands and killed dozens of people who ate contaminated sprouts this summer. That strain escaped banishment because it has not been detected as a cause of illness in the U.S.

The USDA has been considering an expansion of its E. coli ban for at least four years, according to the Times. Starting in March, beef ranging from hamburger meat to tenderized steaks will be tested for these six strains. Products that test positive cannot be sold raw but must be heated to 160 degrees, which kills the bacteria, and sold as cooked products.

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Photo: Tony Crider/flickr

Ellwood Thompson’s, the Richmond-based independent grocery company, has signed a lease to set up shop in Rockville. The organic grocer, which will operate under the name “Dawson’s Market” in Maryland, is set to open at Beall Avenue and North Washington Street next spring.

Ellwood Thompson’s focuses on local sourcing for produce, products, and business needs—they even have their business cards printed in town. The grocer defines “local” as “within 100 miles” of the store, a far stricter definition than most of its competitors. The company is so obsessed with local, it once changed its store name from Ellwood Thompson’s Natural Market to Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market. Rockville residents will be able to enjoy a variety of groceries, prepared foods, and a hot bar fancy enough to rival Whole Foods.

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Cargill, one of the world’s largest food companies, issued a massive recall in August—36 million pounds of fresh and frozen ground turkey products—and temporarily closed its Arkansas plant to deal with Salmonella contamination. The plant reopened on August 19 after what Cargill described as extensive cleaning of its processing line.

But over the weekend, the company issued another recall for another round of products after an August 24th sample tested positive for Salmonella. The recalled items include:

Fresh Ground Turkey Chubs
• 16 oz. (1 lb.) chubs of Fresh HEB Ground Turkey 85/15 with Use or Freeze by Dates of 09/12/2011, 09/13/2011, 09/19/2011 and 09/20/2011
• 16 oz. (1 lb.) chubs of Honeysuckle White 85/15 Fresh Ground Turkey with Use or Freeze by Dates of 09/19/2011, 09/20/2011 and 09/21/2011

Fresh Ground Turkey Trays
• 19.2 oz. (1.2 lb.) trays of Honeysuckle White 85/15 Ground Turkey with Use or Freeze by Dates of 09/10/2011 and 09/12/2011
• 48.0 oz. (3 lb.) trays of Kroger Ground Turkey Fresh 85/15 with Use or Freeze by Dates of 09/17/2011, 09/18/2011 and 09/19/2011
• 48.0 oz. (3 lbs.) trays of Honeysuckle White 85/15 Ground Turkey Family Pack with Use or Freeze by Dates of 09/11/2011, 09/12/2011, 09/13/2011, 09/15/2011, 09/17/2011 and 09/18/2011
• 16 oz. (1 lb.) trays of Honeysuckle White 85/15 Ground Turkey with a Use or Freeze by Date of 09/11/2011

Fresh Ground Turkey Patties
• 16.0 oz. (1 lb.) trays of Honeysuckle White Ground Turkey Patties with a Use or Freeze by Date of 09/18/2011
• 16 oz. (1 lb.) trays of Kroger Ground Seasoned Turkey Patties Fresh 85/15 with a Use or Freeze by Date of 09/17/2011

According to a USDA release, the strain of Salmonella detected is identical to the one responsible for Cargill’s August 3 recall. No illnesses have yet been reported. Cargill requests that customers return the affected products to their point of purchase.

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Some Ward 4 residents responded with anger to reports that demolition had begun on the site of the future Georgia Avenue Walmart. First reported by The Brightwoodian, it appeared that the roof had been razed off the Brightwood Car Barn even though the appropriate permit had not been issued. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs investigated and confirmed that a permit had not been issued for demolition on the site. Immediately, Ward 4 Thrives, a Walmart opposition group, penned a release about the developer’s “flagrant disregard for due process.”

Now, Michael Neibauer of Washington Business Journal reports, it seems the drama stemmed from a simple error. Rockville-based Foulger-Pratt, Walmart’s developer for the Georgia Avenue store, did apply for a permit—but for the wrong address. The demolition began at 5927 Georgia Ave. NW, but the permit was for 5919 Georgia Ave.

A DCRA-issued stop-work order from Wednesday was lifted today. A DCRA spokesperson said the incorrect address should have been caught when the application was submitted.

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