The Daily Telegraph June 05, 2012 CALL it an appuccino. Sydney cafes are using smartphone technology so customers can order ahead. The iPhone and Android apps allow caffeine-addicts to collect orders within a 10-minute window. CitiCafe owner Stan Loupos, who launched his CitiCafe app, said: “People these days are always on the run and they just don’t have time to wait anymore. In the morning rush this is for the person that needs to be in the office, is running late and needs their morning fix.” The app cost more than $6000 to develop, and computers linking it cost a further $12,500. A survey by finance company UMI found 93 per cent of people did daily tasks such as booking appointments and paying bills online. The survey of more than 1000 Australians found women would stick it out with queues for 5-10 minutes while men only lasted 2-5 minutes. CitiCafe…

CSD Staff Jun 06, 2012 To help keep its stores stocked with fresh products, Wawa’s high-volume distribution center sports a high-bay chilled warehouse serviced by 16 fully-automated mini-load stacker cranes and a warehouse management system from Swisslog, allowing the dairy to move 42,000 crates of liquid products daily with an accuracy rate exceeding 99.9%. The name Wawa is well known throughout the mid-Atlantic states. Its dairy convenience stores are seemingly on every major thoroughfare, and with 400 million customers annually it presents a serious logistics challenge to keep the stores stocked. Nowhere is this challenge more critical than with the warehousing and distribution of its fresh liquid milk products. Few consumer food products require more demanding time and temperature controls from production through warehousing and distribution to their arrival on retailers’ shelves than dairy products. Fresh liquid milk must be distributed within days, and some of Wawa’s milk products are…

Eli Greenblat June 7, 2012 The Age Ross Brown believes retailers are threatening the wine industry. THE former boss of 120-year-old winery Brown Brothers, Ross Brown, has used an industry function to launch a spray against the nation’s leading retailers for flooding their stores with private-label wines that he said were hollow, copycats and masquerading as real brands. Speaking as chairman of Australia’s First Families of Wine, a grouping of 12 iconic family-owned wineries, Mr Brown said liquor outlets were crowding out quality Australian wines with private-label offerings. At the First Families event this week, Mr Brown was reported to have said the retailers – he is believed not to have named Woolworths and Coles – were buying up surplus wine and placing a label on it to suggest to shoppers a wine of higher value. Mr Brown told BusinessDay yesterday that some people thought wine labels invented overnight were…

John Fitzgerald June 7, 2012 The Age The lines between big tobacco and alcohol are beginning to blur. WE HAVE come to recognise the familiar message from alcohol producers for us to drink responsibly. Perhaps it is time we should be asking those who make alcoholic beverages to produce responsibly. But with the lines between big tobacco and the alcohol industry beginning to blur, this may be too much to ask. The tragic death of Sara Milosevic and the suffering of her family should remind us all of the pain of loss. The loss, however, seems even more tragic as death came after drinking a beverage that should, by all accounts, be safe. Unfortunately, of course, this is not the case. The full account of how dangerous these drinks are may take some time to unfold. What does not take time, however, is a demonstration of a sense of responsibility…

7 June 2012 NACSonline A retailer’s willingness to expand his offer is bringing a fresh fruit and vegetables, a butcher and a range of specialty foods to the community. SOUTH EVERETT, Wash. – The DKJ Food Mart remains true to its convenience store roots, but has also increased its in-store offer to bring more healthy food choices to the community. The South Everett Beacon reports that DKJ Food Mart, with federal grant assistance, has expanded into a second store, the A1 Produce Market, with fresh fruit and vegetables, a butcher and a range of specialty foods “that cater to the varied ethnic tastes of the … neighborhood.” DKG owner Surjit Bal was approached by Keri Moore of the Snohomish Health District to participate in the Healthy Foods Initiative pilot program. Moore canvased areas where residents had easy access to convenience stores and fast food outlets but not grocery stores. And…