Costco leader in organic food | Carrefour to sell 100 Dia supermarkets
Aldi to double stores in Florida
Costco Wholesale Corp. may already be the U.S. retail industry’s leader in organic foods, with annual sales in the category on track to exceed $4 billion, compared with Whole Foods Market Inc.’s $3.6 billion, BMO Capital Markets said Friday. For Costco, that’s a big increase from the $3 billion it was generating just six to nine months ago, BMO analysts wrote in a note. The shift to organic food offers near- and long-term advantages for the wholesale-club chain and bodes well for customer traffic growth, as it will help the company connect with a key consumer group: millennials. Costco, the second-biggest U.S. retailer after Walmart Stores Inc., hasn't yet captured that demographic, “though the gap for Costco’s average member age versus the U.S. average is already trending down slightly,” said the note. (Source: marketwatch.com)
Pick n Pay imports fresh produce from South-America
Pick n Pay says it was importing chips and other foods from South Africa because there is not enough locally produced food products to meet growing consumer demand, postzambia.com reports. Pick n Pay general manager Andy Roberts said local suppliers lacked capacity to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for fresh foods such as potatoes and meat products for the chain store retail business.
Aldi planning more stores in Florida
Aldi plans to add up to five new stores in Palm Beach County, Fla., by the end of next year, more than doubling the number of locations it currently operates there, local authorities said, supermarketnews.com reports. Aldi plans to add up to five new stores in Palm Beach County, Fla., by the end of next year, more than doubling the number of locations it currently operates there, local authorities said. The Batavia, Ill.-based retailer recently established a Florida South Division based in Royal Palm Beach, where it operates a 650,000-square-foot regional distribution center. The company this month was granted a tax exemption of $1.7 million over seven years on the value of improvements made to that facility, according to the Palm Beach County Department of Economic Sustainability. That project represented a $55 million investment and is estimated to result in a local economic impact of $112.5 million over five years, county officials said.
AU: Aldi begins recruiting staff
Aldi has begun recruiting 400 staff in South Australia ahead of plans to open its first stores next year, theaustralian.com.au reports. Aldi already has 18 confirmed locations for new stores in SA from Victor Harbor, south of Adelaide, to the Barossa Valley, north of the city.
UK: Morrisons axes agriculture manager role
Restructuring at Morrisons means that the retailer’s agriculture manager position will cease to exist, fwi.co.uk reports. Andrew Loftus, who has held the post for the past five years, will leave the company voluntarily at the end of next week. David Evans will continue as head of agriculture
UK Thousands of Tesco staff see bonus cut
Most of the almost 15,000 staff at Tesco Ireland will miss out on an annual bonus this year, after the retailer slashed the discretionary award for 2015, independent.ie reports. Last year employees including those working on the shop floor received typical payments under the annual bonus scheme of around €250 each.
EU: Aldi and Lidl cutting the cost of holidays abroad
Prices in European resorts have plunged for self-catering tourists thanks to cost-cutting supermarkets Aldi and Lidl springing up and keeping local prices down, aol.co.uk reports. The Algarve has seen the supermarkets open along the coastline, resulting in a 26.5 per cent fall in the Portuguese destination's prices to £41.04 for 20 typical food staples, including a loaf of bread, wine, milk, eggs and toilet roll. A Post Office Travel Money Self-Catering on a Shoestring Report found that self-catering costs have fallen heavily across much of Europe, as one in five Brits plan to make a self-catering trip abroad this summer.
Carrefour to sell 100 of its Dia supermarkets
Carrefour is to sell 100 of the 750 Dia stores it purchased last year, after the retailer confirmed the stores are not to feature in its 'transformation plan', esmmagazine.com reports. LSA reports that the retailer has said the outlets in question “are not sufficiently in catchment areas,” or are “not sufficiently competitive.” The transformation plan, which is to be completed by the end of 2016, incorporates the rebranding of Dia supermarkets in France as either, Carrefour Market or Carrefour Contact outlets.
Belgium: Carrefour's afterwork pick-up point
Carrefour Belgium has unveiled the Afterwork Pick-up Point at the offices of television and radio stations RTBF and VRT in Schaerbeek, which house more than 3,000 workers. Users place orders via a dedicated website, retailanalysis.igd.com reports.
Carrefour, Delhaize said to face fines in Belgian cartel
Carrefour SA and Delhaize Group SA are among a group of retailers and manufacturers poised to face fines in an antitrust settlement with Belgium’s competition authority, according to three people familiar with the investigation according to Boomberg.
Kneeland leaving Kings for new position with Ahold
Veteran produce retailer Paul Kneeland is leaving Kings Food Markets, based in Parsippany, NJ, to lead fresh food merchandising for a new division of Ahold USA called Fresh Formats LLC, producenews.com reports.
Dubai: Food sales to increase by 10-15% during Ramadan
Food business in the UAE is expected to see good times ahead, with local retailers anticipating a 10 to 15 per cent rise in sales during the period of Ramadan and all the way through Eid, zawya.com reports. Studies have shown that consumer spending, particularly on food and beverages, tend to go up a few days before the start of Ramadan until the Eid celebration.
Chile: Cencosud reports Q1 2015 results
Cencosud S.A. announced its consolidated financial results for the first quarter of 2015, prnewswire.com reports. Revenues rose 6.5% driven by higher sales in all business divisions. Gross profit rose 10.8% to CLP 740,950 million with gains in all divisions except financial services. Gross margin was 27.9%, compared with 26.8% in 1Q14.
UK: Tesco faces showdown with top lawyer
A highly respected commercial lawyer has been drafted in by a group set up to sue Tesco over last year's accounting scandal in what could turn into a multi-billion-pound lawsuit, iol.co.za reports. He will advise the various institutional investors who have been signed up by the Tesco Shareholder Claims group and a formal claim is expected to be filed later this year.
CA: Watchdog seeks documents from Loblaw over pricing practices
The federal Competition Bureau has secured a court order forcing Loblaw Cos. Ltd. to produce a raft of internal documents to determine whether the grocer pushed its suppliers into giving it attractive deals in ways that could be anti-competitive, theglobeandmail.com reports. Justice Simon Noel of Federal Court ordered Loblaw, the country’s largest grocer, to hand over documents about its extensive set of rules on pricing and competitive practices dating back to the beginning of 2011.
France: Auchan increases bulk-selling in hypermarkets
Auchan has announced that it will open more bulk-buying sections in its supermarkets in France, which will allow its customers to purchase over 400 of its products in larger quantities, LSA reports. Auchan has now announced that by the end of September this year, it will have bulk-buying sections in 39 of its outlets across France (at present it operates 19), esmmagazine.com reports.
Portugal: Jerónimo Martins, Intermarché in talks to take over Alisuper stores
Portuguese retailer Jerónimo Martins and French retail group Intermarché are in talks to acquire a number of outlets that were formerly owned by Porteguese supermarket chain Alisuper, esmmagazine.com reports. Alisuper was rescued from bankruptcy by investor Nogueira three years ago, but the grocery retailer has struggled since then.
South-America: Grupo Éxito reports mixed Q1
Grupo Éxito's net revenues were up 28.4% to COP3,091,400m (USD1,199m) in Q1 2015, including the consolidation of Grupo Disco and Super Inter sales, retailanalysis.igd.com reports. Same store sales were up 3.4% in Colombia and 11.5% in Uruguay, in local currency terms. Net profit was down 29.2% to COP69,961m (USD27m), affected by a one-off tax increase.
