Late last night, Jewel revealed that the “Something Fresh” is a new website, www.freshchicagonews.com. On Facebook, Jewel said “we’ll be featuring fresh items that are trending throughout the Chicago area, right here on our page and on www.FreshChicagoNews.com.”
I’m kind of puzzled by this new site. When Jewel advertised that they’ll be featuring “fresh items trending,” I assumed these items would be food-related. Fresh fruit, recipes, and so on.
However, when you look at www.freshchicagonews.com, it’s featuring a different kind of “fresh items that are trending” under a “Sponsored by Jewel-Osco” banner:
- 7 killed, 23 injured in Chicago weekend shootings
- Seven shot at South Shore laundromat
- Teen shot in chest in Avalon Park
- Strip mall attack wounds 6 as city shootings leave 11 hurt
- $7,000 reward offered in slaying of special ed teacher
- Two girls, 12, accused of stabbing another girl were inspired by website
- Bicyclist Killed in Forest Park Hit-and-Run
- Man dies after weekend shooting in Bridgeport
- 2 missing after boat sinks off Chicago shore
Shoppers are perplexed too. What is the purpose of this site, and what does it have to do with shopping for groceries at Jewel? Here are some Facebook comments:
- “This is a big fail Jewel-Osco I won’t be starting out my day with fresh new stabbings and killings sponsored by Jewel. lol… Thanks but no thanks. prayers for all those families.”
- “Why are you promoting Chicago violence? There’s nothing fresh about that – it’s old news. Did you actually pay some company to link us to stabbings and gun shots as some twisted treat?”
- “how disappointing …does Jewel think this will bring more customers into the store?”
- “stop trying to reinvent the wheel. People want good food and great sales!”
- “#sticktogroceries #freshbodies #wewantfreshjuice #getrealjewel”
What do you think of Jewel-Osco’s new FreshChicagoNews.com?
NFriday says
Hi- Jewel has suddenly revamped the website, and now they only post stories with a positive spin on them. It is interesting how quick that happened.
SSMark1 says
…Concentrating on being a news feed vs. being Chicago’s largest supermarket/grocery store chain. So sad. What a waste. Clearly a poorly thought out project. I could think of so many other areas where they need to improve on being FRESH. A news source isn’t one of them. I guess for FRESH FOOD, we should goo to Caputos, Valli’s, Whole Food, Marianos, or some other local store, and for FRESH NEWS, we can go to this website… It’s sad that they are using food profits on this news venture. FAIL!
Karmaqueen255 says
Instead of paying a group of people to oversee
and write this new “Fresh New” website, they should lower the price of milk by 10c, now that would bring in more shoppers than this nonsense.