More grocers are offering meal kits, seeing in the trend a chance to borrow ideas from online retailers while using their existing customer base to drive sales. Grocers are able to give kits more flexibly without requiring a subscription and without some of the extra packaging required for shipping, which some consumers find onerous.

Giant Eagle is partnering with Ace Hardware to bring hardware departments to four of its supermarkets in the Pittsburgh area. After some remodeling, the first Ace store-within-a-store should open this summer.

Self-driving cars will offer a bounty of business possibilities for the wine industry, technology expert and MFA Professor at the ArtCenter College of Design Philip van Allen says. For example, cars will be able to take customers on curated tours of wineries and to deliver wine to hotels autonomously to fulfill orders, he said.

Online grocer Peapod is working to stay affordable for customers with a new subscription option for midweek-only deliveries. The company is also cutting prices on some popular items and offering bulk savings and deals on bundled items.

More plant-based products are taking a run at meat staples from burgers to shrimp, Alison Roman writes. One of the offerings that will be served at more than 1,000 restaurants including White Castle, the Impossible Burger, copies ground beef so closely that it's an impressive rival, she writes.

Hundreds of grocers and industry representatives traveled to Washington, D.C., for the industry's annual Day in Washington fly-in on Wednesday, talking about issues including preservation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. "It's important that members of Congress understand how proposed administrative changes affect grocers' narrow margins and their ability to help communities thrive," said FMI President and CEO Leslie Sarasin.

Full Harvest is a business-to-business marketplace selling ugly and misshapen fruits and vegetables. Farms in Mexico, Costa Rica and the western US are the main source of the produce sold via the platform, and buyers, among them food and beverage companies and foodservice companies, are in US states including California, Illinois and Texas.

Australia-grown cantaloupes linked to a listeria outbreak there were also shipped to about nine countries in Asia and the Middle East, according to the World Health Organization. At least 20 people in Australia were sickened in the outbreak and seven died.

The Produce for Better Health Foundation is working on a plan to double fruit and vegetable consumption, a mission that could also help curb food waste. "We need greater collaboration from the whole industry and government," said PBH CEO Wendy Reinhardt Kapsak.

Grocers provide SNAP benefits proudly and efficiently to the communities they serve while offering them a range of foods, write Food Marketing Institute CEO-President Leslie G. Sarasin and National Grocers Association CEO-President Peter Larkin. Congress should understand the investment grocers have made and resist adding additional burdens to an efficient program, they write.