Brookshire Grocery Co. (BGC) has announced it raised wages for almost 13,500 hourly employee-partners which totals more than $33 million investment in salaries. Part of this investment is the company making the extra $1 per hour in COVID appreciation pay permanent for the hourly retail and logistics employee-partners along with raising the minimum pay for several positions in retail.

In an effort to curtail vaccine hesitancy and promote education across the country, Unilever delivered truckloads of free ice cream to vaccination sites in NYC, LA, St. Louis, Memphis, Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix. Unilever representatives handed out treats to to newly vaccinated people, vaccine site workers, and volunteers.

As demand for cold foods soared in 2020, so did the hours forklifts were used to load and unload goods. We look at what lift truck technology will help operators continue meeting the challenges of an accelerated cold chain.

On our latest Cold Corner Podcast, Lauren Edmonds, newly elected president of the Refrigerated Foods Association (RFA) joins Editor-in-Chief Michael Costa to discuss the RFA’s plans for the coming year, plus how the pandemic is still affecting the refrigerated foods industry through price hikes and shortages on ingredients, a shrinking labor pool, and more. They also discuss Edmonds’ company, St. Clair Foods, and their move to an automated production facility.

As the nation’s hospitality industry and its farm suppliers move toward pandemic recovery, Straus Family Creamery, a leader in organic dairy farming innovation and climate-positive business practices, reintroduces its Organic Barista Milk product line after limiting production to a narrower assortment during the first 12 months of the pandemic.

Feed the Children, Americold and Tyson Foods are aligning to rapidly deliver more than 500,000 meals to communities across the U.S. to combat the staggering food insecurity children and families are experiencing due to COVID-19. This unprecedented partnership has produced an innovative distribution model allowing the three organizations to revamp the supply chain and distribute meals more quickly throughout the year to those who need support.

Sysco has announced the addition of three new toolkits to its Foodie Solutions platform: Brunch, Protecting Your Business and Turning Your Tables. As more restaurants reopen their dining rooms, these are the latest in a series of carefully curated tools to help customers respond quickly to shifting business requirements and trends resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sysco announced it has reduced its outstanding debt by a total of $1.1 billion. The company repaid the remaining $700 million in outstanding borrowings under its long-term revolving credit facility that expires on June 28, 2024. In addition, Sysco’s United Kingdom-based subsidiary, Brake Bros Limited, repaid £300 million of its £600 million in aggregate principal amount of notes outstanding under its commercial paper program, equating to approximately $417 million in debt reduction.

The Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association (PFMA) joined groups nationwide in recognizing the tremendous efforts of grocery workers during the pandemic and beyond. Governor Tom Wolf proclaimed Monday, February 22, as Supermarket Employee Day in Pennsylvania as a way to acknowledge and thank supermarket employees for their extraordinary dedication to a job that has become more significant than ever.

Julie Lam, a key architect of the Port of Oakland’s COVID-19 response has been officially named the agency’s Chief Financial Officer. Lam had been the acting CFO for the past 10 months. Lam will be responsible for financial management, budgeting and accounting in her new role. She’ll also oversee human resources, risk management, purchasing and enterprise resource planning.