Monday, January 19, 2009, 1/19/2009 01:20:00 PM

Trade Secrets of the Grocers

From kgw.com in Portland, Oregon, a story arising out of natural food marketer, Whole Foods, and its attempt to defend itself against Federal Trade Commission claims that its purchase of Wild Oats Markets created a natural foods monopoly.

According to the story, after months of battling to keep its trade secrets under wraps, New Seasons Market had agreed to hand over some operational information to rival grocer Whole Foods Market.

Portland-based New Seasons didn’t give details but said the information was significantly less than what Whole Foods had requested in its original subpoena.

In October, Whole Foods subpoenaed New Seasons and 92 other vendors and retailers asking for private data, including store sales figures, internal e-mails and memos, product lineups and marketing strategies.
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