United Natural Foods announced their fourth acquisition this year, with New York-based Gourmet Guru, a company that provides distribution and merchandising for up-and-coming fresh and organic brands.

This new business move will help UNFI become familiar with new fresh and organic brands and gain more attention in urban markets. According to Supermarket news, “the transaction is expected to be neutral to UNFI’s fiscal 2017 earnings and modestly accretive to UNFI’s earnings in Fiscal 2018.”

UNFI will take this opportunity to “strengthen [its] expertise in identifying new and fast-growing health and wellness brands with the strategic acquisition of Gourmet Guru,” Steven Spinner, UNFI’s president and CEO, said in a press release.

The CEO of Gourmet Guru, Jeff Lichtenstein, will remain in a leadership role. “UNFI recognizes the importance of helping exciting and new producers of fresh and organic foods and Gourmet Guru is proud to become a part of UNFI,” said Lichtenstein.

Both companies are excited to bring an inventive variety of products to the market.

This week in St. Paul, Minn., independent food retailers from cross the country learned how they can bring deals and ideas to their own stores at the Supervalu’s annual Expo. With more than 4,200 attendees there were plenty of “Monster Deals,” auctions and the Supervalu annual Master Marketer awards.

Check out photos from the event below.

“Giant Tiger is Canada’s best-kept secret,” says Thomas Haig, president and chief operating officer at the Ottawa-based company. Currently running 220 stores across the country, they have serious plans to grow more locations and revamp the ones that are already thriving.

The privately owned company sells a wide variety of items from groceries to big-screen TVs, and the new revamp will make room for more products—and a better shopping experience.

Giant Tiger has grown mostly in small towns and cities, because every location caters to the needs of the community at the help of each local franchise owner. “These store managers live in the area, (have) lived there for several years and understand the clientele and understand the needs and wants of the community,” says Haig.

While looking to expand to locations that are in demand, Giant Tiger has recently opened stores in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Sudbury, Ontario, and Wetaskiwin, Alberta. An additional Peterborough, Ontario location will open next April.

“(Our customers) are looking for a simplified shopping experience,” says Karen Sterling, vice-president of marketing at Giant Tiger. To achieve this, the company plans to reorganize store layouts for more efficient shopping. In addition to all of these adjustments, their online store will also be rebranded.

Retail analyst Sandy Silva adds that Giant Tiger finds its success in support from consumers who want to strengthen a Canadian-grown business.

Shoppers Drug Mart has been steadily branching out to the grocery industry by naturally taking advantage of their convenient locations and it’s looking like a positive move so far. The project to remodel several stores and provide fresh produce to customers began in 2014 and has how escalated to 29 stores as of today.

Convenience is a big factor in the success of this new venture, because traveling out to Walmart can add a significant amount of effort to a trip a customer may just wanted to be quick and painles.

A large part of the food retail industry consumers will go out of their way for a low price and don’t have an issue taking advantage of convenience and sacrificing a few extra dollars. “More and more people are pressed for time,” notes Charlebois. Targeting the demographic that needs to save time means they stand apart from threatening companies trying to dominate like Walmart and Costco.

Retailers pushing for the number one spot have the capacity to do so, and it’s lighting a fire to the competition. Loblaw reported within the previous year its net profit dropped by nearly 15 per cent in the second quarter. Their solution has been to not only support Shoppers Drug Mart with fresh food, but open their own CityMarkets with the same idea in mind.

Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart success with their new plans won’t come easy but they are willing to take the risk. “Execution and scale, all of this stuff is going to be difficult for them,” says Kevin Grier, an independent food-industry analyst based in Guelph, Ont.

Native to North America, cranberries can be used to help with your immune system cardiac health, stomach health, and more. Pharmatoka, has now joined the 40 companies involved in The American Botanical Council’s (ABC) Adopt-an-Herb botanical education program by adopting cranberry.

The educational program means resources and the ability to further research the herb is always made available. “ABC is deeply grateful to Pharmatoka for its financial support of the curation and expansion of ABC’s HerbMedPro database by adopting cranberry,” said Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC. “Pharmatoka is a world leader in the development of high quality, clinically researched, standardized cranberry extracts that have applications in the dietary supplement and pharmaceutical industries” says Blumenthal.

ABC is an independent research and educational organization therefore “herb adopters do not influence the scientific information that is compiled for their respective adopted herbs” says Blumenthal.

For more than 10 years, Pharmatoka has remained committed to high quality products and recognizing the importance of safety and efficacy. “We are proud to work actively with ABC, and we follow ABC’s leadership in keeping the botanical world clean and efficacious” says Gunter Haesaerts, founder and CEO of Pharmatoka.

This year the the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP) shared new information about cranberries which pointed out the remarkable potential health benefits of the herb’s numerous elements.

The dietary supplement company Land Art produces and distributes their products across Canada. A leader in the field since 1992 has announced they plan to team M2 Brand Management to help propel their expansion into the western region. M2 Brand Management plans to represent Land Art in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan & Manitoba.

Five years ago Walgreens obtained drugstore.com at the equity value of $429 million, and now they have made the decision to no longer keep the website and beauty.com running. Then CEO of Walgreens Greg Wasson had hopes to “accelerate our online strategy to leverage the best community store network in America by becoming the most convenient choice for health and daily living needs.”

Walgreen’s focus for the company is being taken in a different direction. “Over the past year, we have been focusing on building new omni-channel capabilities on Walgreens.com with initiatives that improved assortment and website user experiences, enhanced our digital coupon capabilities to provide more customer value, and added digital tools into our stores to elevate our shopping experiences,” says Walgreens.

Though some employment positions with Drugstore.com at the Bellevue office will not be moving forward, the company’s spokesperson Phill Caruso, says they plan to figure out a permanent path for those remaining.

Walgreen is aware closing down Drugstore.com will force pre-taxe charges of estimated nearly $115 million but will take action with their decision in September.

After consistent acquisitions in the natural products business, companies are demonstrating to the public the strength that still remains in this industry. The latest purchase is by Clarions Brand who recently bought the probiotics line Florajen.

Florajen demonstrate the company’s dedication to potency, freshness and quality by providing a product that requires refrigeration. “Florajen is the perfect addition to our portfolio. We have a longstanding history of partnering with healthcare professionals to provide consumers with trusted solutions to their everyday health needs, and Florajen represents both an exciting and strategic next step for us,” says Clarion Brands CEO Gary Downing.

Clarion Brands is in the portfolio of companies owned by Swander Pace Capital, and this will be the second acquisition by Swander Pace in the dietary supplement industry this year. Leading up to this deal, InterHealth was recently involved in an acquisition purchase, along with Jamieson Labs, therefore Swander Pace is the latest to add to the private equity capital trend.

“Even though we’ve been subject to a lot of negative publicity over the past year there is still a very active market in this regard, says Scott Steinford president of both Natural Algae Astaxanthin Association (NAXA) and the CoQ10 Association.

Friday’s GDP report saw new levels that indicate the housing boom is doing more than just providing unaffordable homes for wealthy buyers. Canada’s economy is at a standstill and bank lending, accompanied by Vancouver and Toronto’s housing market is helping keep it afloat.

Real estate and financial services make up 20 per cent of the economy, a percentage that hasn’t been recorded since the early 1960s. But this might not be the best news, since Canada has ended up in record household debt. Policy makers are under pressure to slow the price increase that makes home buying less of a possibility for many Canadians.

The GDP also shared data that Canada’s economic expansion reached an incredibly low expansion of 1.2 per cent. This is compared to previous years of typically expecting a growth of at least 5 per cent in the span of two years. Canada’s economy has essentially hit a halt over the last 10 months, mostly due to Alberta wildfires in May and the impact on oil production.

Despite these disappointing numbers, expectations are that this information will bring a sense of urgency from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau to push towards positive growth for 2017.

The grocery industry has become more competitive than before, prices have declined dramatically and the reason goes beyond food retailers winning the battle with vendors.

The food retailing landscape has taken a new shape with Walmart turning entirely focused on food, and Costco holding 10 per cent of food retailing market share. The two stand-outs are successfully satisfying the consumers who are not looking to fuss over change but survive.

Costco and Walmart are dominating the industry because of their reliably affordable prices, this leaves other companies under pressure to stay in the race.

This shift in the industry puts Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro in a position to try their best to compete with lower prices. Prices are dropping so everyone can hold place as a strong competition, even if that means accommodating lower prices.

In a marketplace where one retailer stands apart from the rest, consumers who find themselves at any grocery store are benefiting from this battle for the best prices.