IGA ANNOUNCES SIXTH ANNUAL HOMETOWN HOLIDAYS MARKETING EVENT

$8,000 Grand Prize to be Awarded to the Hometown Holidays National Recipe Challenge Winner

CHICAGO, IL - IGA today announced it will hold the IGA Hometown Holidays marketing event in participating stores November 12th through 26th. During the two-week timeframe, IGA supermarkets across the country will offer customers valuable savings on brand-name sponsor products, as well as the opportunity to enter original recipes in the sixth annual Hometown Holidays Recipe Challenge.

A host of famous brand-name sponsors will feature discounted products during the event, including Kraft Foods & the Nabisco Biscuit Division, ConAgra Foods, The Coca-Cola Company, Minute Maid Juices, Unilever, The J.M. Smucker Company, Campbell Soup Company, Nestlé USA, Anheuser-Busch, Inc., and Georgia Pacific Corporation.

Though the event officially occurs November 12-26, IGA customers will be able to enter the Hometown Holidays Recipe Challenge until December 18th. Contest is open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are 18 years of age or older. Professional chefs, food writers or critics, home economists and other food and culinary professionals are not eligible. Valid entries must be original recipes and feature two or more sponsor products. In addition, entries must: be solely created by entrant; not have been previously published, submitted in other contests or won previous awards; and not infringe the rights of any third party. One entry per person. No mechanically reproduced Entries or facsimiles allowed.

From the eligible entries, eight finalists will be selected by Chicago’s esteemed Illinois Institute of Art’s Culinary Division. Each of the finalists and a guest will be flown to Chicago in April of 2007 for the weekend cook-off at The Illinois Institute of Art Chicago’s Culinary Division. Finalists will prepare the recipes, which will then again be judged by a panel of the Institute’s chefs.

In celebration of the 2006 IGA 80th Anniversary, the Grand Prize winner will be awarded $8,000.

“We are very pleased to bring to our IGA customers the sixth annual Hometown Holidays event,” IGA Senior Director of Branding and Business Development

Jim Walz said. “This event allows us to bring to our customers valuable savings on their favorite brands during the time they need it most—the holiday season,” Walz said. “In addition to that, we can give our customers the opportunity to enter a national recipe contest with an impressive cash prize. Last year there were more than 500 entries in the contest. On this, the 80th Anniversary of IGA, we’re hoping to draw an even larger number of contestants from all across the United States.”

IGA, the only global supermarketer based in the United States, is the world’s largest voluntary supermarket network with aggregate worldwide retail sales of more than $20 billion per year. The Alliance includes more than 4,000 Hometown Proud Supermarkets worldwide, supported by 52 distribution companies and more than 55 major manufacturers, vendors and suppliers encompassing everything from grocery to equipment items. IGA ranks in the top 10 in world food supermarketing. IGA has operations in 48 of the United States and more than 40 countries, commonwealths and territories on all six inhabited continents. . IGA's theme and philosophy, Hometown Proud, dates from its 1930s national radio show, IGA Hometown Hour, reflecting the local roots of IGA independent grocers.