Late models gather for a formation lap at Midvale Speedway.
The Racing Report is a five-part photo essay shot at short tracks in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania that will run in Farm and Dairy through the summer. Each month we have brought you a different theme to ponder from a different track.
For the fifth and final installment, photojournalist Matthew Chasney got rained out of two races in two different states over Labor Day Weekend.
I originally intended to shoot the final Racing Report for this year at Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, West Virginia. I drove down from Cleveland with my friends Brian and David to shoot the legendary Hillbilly 100 dirt late model race. Unfortunately, Mother Nature and the brass at Lucas Oil Dirt Series had different plans.
While we were on our way south, the decision was made to cancel the race because the track was too muddy from rain the night before. A rainout in an extreme drought — go figure.
I learned the bad news from a gas station attendant about 10 minutes from the track who took one look at my tie-dyed 2007 Hillbilly 100 T-shirt and said, “Oh hun, they ain’t racin’ tonight on account of the rain.” I sent a photo of us feigning sadness and sent it to my editor Rachel along with the news. There was nothing to do but laugh about it.
I had to scramble and figure out a plan b. On our way down we passed Midvale Speedway near New Philadelphia, Ohio and they had a full parking lot. I’d always wanted to visit this 3/10 mile asphalt track and this, evidently, was my night.
I got to the track just in time for compact class driver Jakob Keller to load his car onto the trailer. He was done for the day. Jake led the heat race until a caution bunched up the field on the second to last lap. He got outraced in turn 2 and finished a more than respectable second. He liked his chances in the B-Main but a broken alternator took him out before he could turn a single lap. Racing isn’t fair.
Keller and his team have been mired in bad luck recently. They totaled two cars last season and blew a couple of motors. This race felt like a real turning point, though. They had the pace and luck was on their side. Until it wasn’t. The third-generation racer understands the value of patience and he takes setbacks in stride. When mechanical gremlins strike the calm and measured Keller says “You’ve just gotta roll with it, there’s nothing you can do about it.” For Jake, just racing is enough.
We went our separate ways and I headed down to take photos of the modified feature as dark clouds loomed in the west. On the first lap, two cars got into each other in turn 4 and a lengthy caution came out to clean up oil that had been spilled across the entire track. While cleanup crews were dealing with that, rain began to fall. The majority of fans made the exodus to the parking lot while a few die-hards put on their ponchos and waited it out.
The boys and I discussed our options and played amateur meteorologist while we watched the jet dryer turn some hot laps. In fact, I saw more laps from it than I did from any race car. The rain picked up and we decided to head home. I had been there for an hour, and I photographed precisely two laps of green flag racing. Racing resumed in the early morning — a credit to Midvale’s crew.
Regardless, I still had a racing report to file. As Sturgill Simpson said “That’s the way it goes, life ain’t fair and the world is mean.” Or, in the words of Jake Keller, “If it’s meant to happen, it’s gonna happen.” I had a deadline, so it was time to make it happen.
You can’t fight the weather (or a broken alternator). There’s enough to be upset about in this world, but a drive to West Virginia with friends, a late summer shower and an hour at the race track don’t make that list. It was a good reminder that the universe doesn’t operate on our terms, but it’s up to us to make it what we will. After all, where would the joy in life be if you expected only wins and sunny days?
I hope you’ve enjoyed the Racing Report as much as I have enjoyed making it. We’ll see you again next spring.
NAMOI Cotton is considering the latest offer from Olam Agri to keep the bidding war for Australia’s largest cotton ginner alive.
Olam today announced it has increased its offer price for the ASX-listed company to 75 cents from 70 cents previously to compete against Louis Dreyfus Company Melbourne Holdings’ standing bid of 67c.
In a statement, the Singapore-based Olam Agri said its offer was “consistent with Olam Agri’s superior valuation of the Namoi business compared to LDC.”
“We present a distinctly superior offer price for Namoi compared to LDC, demonstrating our steadfast belief in its value and potential,” Olam Agri chief executive officer fibre, agri-industrials and ag services Ashok Hegde said.
“I am confident that combining our two highly complementary businesses will unlock opportunities for both businesses, Australian cotton growers and the broader industry.
“We urge Namoi’s board and shareholders to recognise the superior value of our offer.”
However, Olam Agri is upbeat about gaining comparable approvals.
“While the ACCC approval process has taken longer than anticipated, we remain confident and are committed to working through the process to win approval, including proposing remedies aimed at satisfying the ACCC’s concerns,” Queensland Cotton managing director and Olam Agri Australia country head Ashish Govil said.
“As we have stated before, our proposed acquisition will not substantially lessen competition in the Australian cotton industry,” Mr Govil said.
“Those familiar with the ginning services market understand the competitive nature of acquiring cotton to gin, practically making concentration of gin ownership less of an issue in today’s market.
“We have submitted remedies, including a gin divestment and ProClass share divestment, and now await ACCC’s feedback on these proposals.”
Olam Agri has said it “can unlock the future value of Namoi through its culture of innovation and operational excellence”.
“The recent path-breaking initiative for the first ever cotton export through the Port of Darwin by Queensland Cotton is testament to how Olam Agri can co-operate with industry participants and peers and create operational advancements and unlock value for the industry.”
Samuel Terry Asset Management holds 25 percent of Namoi shares, making it the company’s largest shareholder.
STAM managing director Fred Woollard today emailed Namoi’s directors to encourage them to engage with Olam in relation to its revised offer.
“STAM confirms that it considers the revised Olam offer to be superior to the LDC offer,” Mr Woollard said.
The market is awaiting an update from Namoi Cotton.
“In light of the revised offer, the independent directors are considering their recommendations in respect of the offers from both Olam and Louis Dreyfus Company Melbourne Holdings, and will provide an update to the market in due course.”
KANSAS CITY — Registration is now open for the State of Food and Beverage Innovation webinar from Food Business News. The event is based on an exclusive survey of R&D executives conducted earlier this year.
The 1-hour webinar will be held on Thursday, Sept. 26 at 1 p.m. Central and will provide an exclusive review of the results from the survey conducted by Cypress Research.
Join Keith Nunes, editor of Food Business News, Marjorie Hellmer, president of Cyprus Research, and Dave VandenEinde, vice president and group R&D leader for Food Solutions Americas, Cargill, as they discuss the top challenges confronting product development teams.
“The results of our survey will offer insights into the issues and trends that will drive food and beverage innovation during the next 12 to 18 months,” said Nunes.
Topics in the webinar will include where food and beverage manufacturers are making R&D investments in 2025, trends to inspire ideation, ingredient priorities, and the factors influencing R&D product development strategies as well as risk tolerance.
SHELTON, CONN. — Inline Plastics has rolled out two new Safe-T-Fresh Rounds featuring the line’s tamper evident design.
Along with tamper protection, the design includes a leak resistant seal and anti-migration lids. The rounds also have rigid stacking rails for more stability and better use of shelf space, the company said.
Source: Inline Plastics
The platters are available as 54-ounce and 104-ounce rounds with four compartments around a central dip holder.
“These platters are space-saving, sales-boosting superstars that will have your consumers coming back for more,” Inline Plastics said. “These aren’t just any platters — they’re culinary canvases designed to showcase and secure contents, keeping appetizing spreads party-perfect.”
NEPTUNE BEACH, Fla. – It’s pretty much a Florida tradition for any beach day: You load up the car and on the way to the ocean, you make the obligatory Publix run to grab all the beach essentials like Pub Subs, sweet tea and fried chicken.
Just check social media. There are a ton of creators who describe their Publix pit stops as a mandatory step before any fun-in-the-sun activity.
But any beachgoers heading down Atlantic Boulevard toward Neptune Beach will have a choice to make. That’s because two Publix stores sit just over 500 feet apart.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: News4JAX
A new report has exposed the true cost of New South Wales’ ballooning pests and weeds problem.
The Invasive Species Management Review released by the NSW Government found the cost of invasive species in NSW skyrocketed to $1.9 billion in the 2022-23 financial year.
NSW Farmers Conservation and Resource Management Committee Member Bronwyn Petrie said as the state’s pests and weeds continued to explode, a coordinated and concerted effort to ramp up biosecurity had never been more critical.
“There’s no doubt we have a problem; pigs the size of footy players are running rampant across the state, weeds are spreading like wildfire and wild dogs are bleeding through our borders,” Mrs Petrie said.
“The state government has made a strong start when it comes to supporting us in this battle against invasive species, but we’re at a point now where the problem is spiraling out of control.
“In the blink of an eye, we have gone from a multi-million-dollar dilemma to a multi-billion-dollar one, and farmers can only spend so much more of their own time and money trying to control these species before they can no longer front up to produce our food and fibre.”
With the report projecting new biosecurity incursions could cost the state $29.7 billion annually by 2030, Mrs Petrie said significant steps must be taken to bolster the nation’s biosecurity systems before the problem escalated too far out of control.
“There’s no doubt we need a cross-tenure, cross-landscape approach to managing weeds and pests that’s more intensive and enforceable than anything we currently have in place,” Mrs Petrie said.
“Pests and weeds are the problem of all land managers – not just farmers – and our plan to tackle them needs to recognise this shared responsibility, if we are to shift the dial.
“Real action, plans and progress on protecting our state from these threats needs to be put in place now, or else a few years down the track we could well lose this battle on biosecurity.”
The numbers don’t lie: Over half of Americans are actively trying to shed pounds. The U.S. faces a weight problem with obesity rates more than doubling since 1980 and remaining stubbornly high for over two decades.
Digital retail media has given retailers and advertisers the biggest stage imaginable for reaching consumers. But that giant platform doesn’t guarantee a giant impact when it comes to influencing customers’ purchasing decisions.
As the grocery industry has quickly accelerated retail media efforts over the past few years, digital advancements took center stage in 2023 and now in-store capabilities have stepped into the spotlight throughout this year.
Recently, retailers, advertisers and industry experts alike have noticed that, despite the numerous possibilities of digital, in-store retail media is proving more influential to consumers.
Currently, 84% of retail sales continue to occur in-store, making the potential of in-store retail media more crucial than ever before, according to a July report from in-store advertising provider Vibenomics.
In-store retail media advancements are particularly beneficial to regional and mid-market retailers, Kevin Bridgewater, senior vice president of retail media company Quad, said in an interview, noting that these smaller retailers can better articulate their customer base to CPG partners and explain why they would benefit from messaging about a product.
“The site traffic just isn’t enough for these smaller retailers to generate enough excitement from the brands, but the foot traffic is significant,” Bridgewater said.
A grocer’s ability to follow a shopper’s journey throughout the store and link it to their baskets and purchases with in-store retail media capabilities is vital. Impressions, which signify if a customer saw the ad, and impact, which tracks if an ad led to a purchase, are both vital for grocers and CPGs to understand the success of an ad campaign.
Where shoppers can expect to see popular in-store retail media technology in grocery stores.
Julia Himmel/Grocery Dive
Measuring impact
Every section of the grocery store can be decked out with in-store retail media, and the placement of these gadgets is strategic, aiming to garner the most impact and collect the most shopper data, experts said.
Sampling kiosks
Courtesy of Freeosk
The first retail media technology a shopper may encounter is a sampling kiosk, giving customers the opportunity for discovery right as they walk through the door.
Kiosks most commonly live at a store’s entrance and are often interactive, Gil Phipps, senior vice president of global customer solutions at Advantage Solutions and former chief marketing officer with Sprouts Farmers Market, said in an interview. That interaction is essential to measuring the impact of ad messaging.
Wakefern Food Corp. was one of the first to widely implement interactive kiosks back in 2023, installing them at 95 ShopRite and The Fresh Grocer stores. Powered by Freeosk, the units dispensed product samples to shoppers after they scanned in with their phone, allowing the system to collect data and see if that trial led to a purchase.
While kiosks provide a seemingly direct method to showcase an ad partner’s campaign and gather shopper intel, their main shortcoming is their distance from the register and primary product display, Phipps noted, especially when compared to retail media messaging that is more integrated into a store’s layout.
“Messaging in the store right when you walk in is important, but not as powerful as messaging cereal on the cereal aisle, and, certainly, closer to the product and closer to the point of purchase is more powerful,” Phipps said.
Digital end caps & vertical banners
Courtesy of The Save Mart Companies
As shoppers make their way deeper into the store, they may encounter a digital end cap. Positioned at the end of an aisle, these end caps are mainly used to grab shoppers’ attention on stand-out products, like limited-time season offerings, or staple items.
Once a consumer makes their way down the aisle, vertical banners — smaller screens attached to the aisle’s display to draw shoppers to particular goods — will grab their attention next.
These aisle-centered in-store retail media tools often use the same measurement tactics and technology.
In April, The Save Mart Companies began rolling out in-store retail media technology as part of the launch of its In-Store Connect network, which is powered by Quad.
To measure ad performance, Quad collects transaction logs from its retail partners, including The Save Mart Companies, to measure category SKU-level performance of participating brands, Bridgewater said in an interview.
End caps, vertical banners and other aisle screens supplied by Quad determine impressions through “shopper trap encounter technology,” Bridgewater said, a capability that senses and measures a shopper’s in-store maneuvers. The company then analyzes this transaction and SKU-level data alongside impressions.
From there, Quad carries out A/B testing, also known as split testing, to track awareness and compares the results for stores within its network against stores in the same chain that are not part of its network, Bridgewater said.
Cooler screens
Courtesy of Cooler Screens
Grocers can also bring retail media to their refrigerated doors.
Technology and retail media company CoolerX, formerly named Cooler Screens, is one such company that offers digital refrigerators and freezer doors. These screens showcase ads and product information as well as let shoppers interact with digital merchandising.
Artem Lavrinovich, chief data and product officer for the company, compared the interaction to a consumer clicking on a digital ad. For its retail partners, CoolerX uses sensors on its screens to provide shopper behavior insights, including how close they were to the screen, how long they stayed in front of it and how many shoppers viewed it. This intel, as well as the store’s transaction logs, are time-stamped, allowing CoolerX to understand the correlation between a displayed ad and shoppers’ baskets.
If a customer is standing close to the CoolerX door screen for an extended time, the company can serve them an ad aimed at influencing their purchase choices, such as highlighting a trending item behind the refrigerator door they are looking at or displaying a QR code that offers additional information or savings, Lavrinovich said.
“The sensors are not just there to count how many ads were played and what the dwell time and the distance were. They’re actually there to recognize where the customer is in their journey,” he said.
Smart carts
Courtesy of Instacart
Smart carts are a way grocers can combine nearly all in-store retail media has to offer — push ads, personalization, in-store app features, loyalty program promotions and digital screens — into one machine.
Though not yet as widely deployed as digital screens, smart carts are gaining popularity amongst grocers.
Instacart is an e-commerce provider that is heavily leaning into the power of smart carts, with “thousands” of its screen-equipped carts, Caper Carts, expected to be in supermarkets by the end of 2024, CEO Fidji Simo said in May.
As in-store retail media has grown, so have Caper Cart’s capabilities. In January, Instacart debuted ads on the smart cart’s screens and began piloting the new capability at Good Food Holdings banner stores. The feature enables CPG brands to engage with customers through ads during their shopping trips and serve them more personalized content based on past purchases and in-store shopping behavior, Instacart said in an emailed announcement about the technology.
With smart carts being one of the newest types of in-store retail media, measurement capabilities are not as standard as stationary in-store screens. In emailed comments, Instacart did not elaborate on Caper Cart’s measurement capabilities.
What’s limiting in-store retail media tech?
While grocers can unlock deeper shopper behavior insights with their newfound retail media capabilities, experts note that advancements are often halted and the technology itself has limitations.
For example, while smart carts may be the next wave of in-store retail media technology, Phipps worries that they may end up restricting shopper spending.
Because there is a limit to the number of items that can go into a cart, Phipps is concerned that specialty features, like being able to tally up a shopper’s total prior to checkout, might not work if a shopper exceeds the cart’s capacity.
Even more pressing for consumers, however, is the potential that grocers might breach their privacy as they look to further personalize the shopping experience.
CoolerX, Quad and Grocery TV don’t currently capture or record personally identifiable information like gender, age and race, they said. Instead, they lean on impressions to measure an ad’s impact.
To dwell or not to dwell
Dwell time is one of the most common metrics in-store retail media technology measures. And while some experts claim it is a crucial way to track customer engagement, others find it less reliable.
According to Phipps, dwell time is an all-encompassing way to measure impressions as it picks up how many customers pass by an ad and how much time a shopper spends in front of an ad. That information can then be contextualized with store transaction logs and time of day to indicate how an ad performed.
Bridgewater, however, noted that Quad does not find dwell time accurate for measuring an ad’s impact on shoppers or for collecting impressions.
“We don’t feel there is an accurate way to measure dwell time that allows us to communicate back to a brand that they were engaged with the actual media,” he said. “[A shopper] could be looking at a product, they could be looking at something else, they could be stopped looking on their phone.”
Grocery TV CEO Marlow Nickell and Head of Data and Analytics Dallas Griffin noted that the company experimented with measuring demographics on their devices about five years ago, a practice they “abandoned very quickly” after getting inaccurate results. Now, the company relies on third-party audited impressions through a partnership with Placer.ai.
Lavrinovich noted that CoolerX’s technology acts like a radar-based system, sensing a human’s presence without gathering demographic details while Quad bases ad impact on impressions, SKU level movement and retailers’ transaction logs.
“We have no cameras on our device. We have no intention of putting cameras on our devices. Our belief, and my belief specifically, is that crosses the line of what the customer is looking for,” Bridgewater said, noting that collecting demographic information raises privacy concerns for consumers.
Going forward, tapping into retailers’ apps may be the key to unlocking in-store retail media.
A retailer’s app is “the most powerful in-store media surface” combining first-party data with in-store traffic insights, said Jordan Berke, founder and CEO of Tomorrow Retail Consulting and a former Walmart e-commerce executive.
“As consumers engage with the app while they’re in store, the potential to personalize and monetize and to give brands very targeted engagement opportunities is remarkable,” he added.
According to Berke, the next step for in-store retail media advancement is to combine the power of apps with in-store digital screens, giving customers the most personalized shopping experience possible. This development would involve enabling in-store screens to recognize when a customer’s app is nearby and display product ads and store messages on the aisle screen that fit their specific needs.
Getting to this point, though, would take retailers convincing their customers to trade privacy for this personalization, but it’s a trade-off Berke believes customers will be willing to accept.
“It’s not a gimme, it’s not a low-hanging fruit opportunity,” Berke said. However, the industry has seen “time and time again that if retailers can prove and continuously deliver that value, customers are comfortable with that exchange [of personal information],” he added.
Connecting in-store screens with apps would also improve metrics — specifically incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) — for grocers’ brand and advertiser partners, Berke said.
Measuring iROAS requires precise attribution and control group creation. Currently, though, grocers’ in-store screen metrics are “lighter and looser,” leaving them unable to provide the highly detailed data advertisers seek, according to Berke.
Quad, for example, is getting ready to roll out a capability where people can opt-in to link their retailer loyalty app to then receive personalized offers such as coupons, according to Bridgewater.
“The fact that we are targeting people who are just in the store is so significant … [Previously] you haven’t been able to target them in an excellent environment when they’re ready to make that purchase decision — until now,” Bridgewater said.
“The acquisition of Abelei Flavors, Inc. expands our geographical footprint, technical capabilities and overall flavor portfolio so we can better serve our customers,” said CEO Tom Damiano.
Abelei Flavors specializes in sweet brown, citrus, fruit and other flavors for the food, beverage, confection, dairy, health and nutrition industries. The purchase of Abelei will bring more flavor tools to the California-based company.
Dive Insight:
T. Hasegawa has been expanding its U.S. presence for years to make its portfolio more attractive to food and beverage companies.
“We couldn’t find a more perfect partner in joining the T. Hasegawa USA, Inc. team in continued growth and expansion within the US marketplace,” Shelley Henderson, vice president of operations at Abelei Flavors, said in a press release. “The collaboration of resources, talent and innovation will be a tremendous recipe for success expanding upon our existing capabilities.”
T. Hasegawa has a broad portfolio of flavor solutions that serve industries such as alcoholic beverages, bakery items and confections, botanical, seafood, dips, dressings and sauces.
The Abelei deal follows T. Hasegawa’s purchase of Mission Flavors and Fragrances in 2020, a manufacturer of custom flavors based in Foothill Ranch, California. A year later, T. Hasegawa opened a facility in Southern California dedicated to the production of sweet food and beverage flavors. The facility increased T. Hasegawa’s manufacturing capacity in the U.S. market by 50%.
With a bigger U.S. presence, the company also has deepened its leadership ranks.
Last year, T. Hasegawa expanded its R&D leadership team with the promotion of Lauren Mayberry and Toshifumi Nozawa. Both executives oversee a team of flavorists focusing on sweet food and beverage projects and formula management, among other processes.
