The Center for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating an incident where a dead bat was found in a packaged salad at a Florida grocery store. They will look into whether the bat was infected with rabies. The five-ounce containers of Organic Marketside Spring Mix were distributed to Walmart stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, according to the FDA. (al.com)Raley’s & Sacramento Kings encourage eating fresh produce
Raley’s and the Sacramento Kings Foundation announced a new partnership creating a new garden program that will serve communities stretching from the Central Valley to Northern Nevada. Through the ROOT community gardens, the Kings and Raley’s will connect young adults, families, and non-profits that assist thousands with fresh, locally sourced produce while also growing the next generation of healthy eaters. (eprretailnews.com) US: Shipt to deliver in Wilmington
Shipt, an online grocery market, started delivering groceries to Wilmington residents on April 4, extending the company's North Carolina coverage to nearly 1.6m households. (wect.com) Walmart's groceries make it the king of brick-and-mortar retail
In a note to clients sent out on April 7, Telsey Advisory Group Analyst, Joseph Feldman, says that Walmart is re-emerging as the dominant brick-and-mortar retailer because of the company's investments and execution in grocery and private brand sales. "Walmart appears to be regaining its dominance in physical retail... The focus on food and e-commerce, price investments, and the customer experience, point to a winning formula to gain market share," Feldman wrote. He upgraded Walmart to "Outperform" and raised his price target to $82.00 from $73.00. (markets.businessinsider.com) UK: 'Ocado will be hit hard'
Ocado saw £85m wiped off its value as the number of customers choosing to do their weekly food shop online continued to slow. UBS slapped the online supermarket with a double downgrade, cutting its target price by 225p to 200p and lowering it to 'sell' from 'buy'. After online customer growth halved across all grocery chains last year, the broker said Ocado will be hit hard. (thisismoney.co.uk) India: Flipkart to re-enter grocery business
Speaking in a session at India Internet Day, organised by TiE DelhiNCR on Friday, Flipkart’s CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said Flipkart will enter the grocery category. “Eighty percent of the units bought in India are in the grocery segment. The grocery market is almost as big as $400-600m so we will have to get into it,” said. Amazon already sells grocery online through Amazon Now. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) UK: Tesco to report a return to financial health
Tesco will this week reassure investors that its crisis years are behind it by reporting a bigger than expected jump in annual profits. Macquarie analyst Sreedhar Mahamkali thinks Tesco is on track to bank £1.3bn for the year to the end of February, thanks to cost-cutting and a more benign pricing environment after two years of falling food prices came to an end. “We expect a beat and look for a confident outlook,” said Mahamkali. (theguardian.com) Spar Croatia becomes country's third largest grocery retailer
Spar Croatia is set to become the nation's third largest grocery retailer after the closing of the deal to acquire Billa’s assets in the country. Last December, Spar said it would acquire over 62 Billa stores in Croatia, together with the logistics centre in Sveta Helana, a deal that was approved by the country’s antitrust body in February. The retailer said that Spar’s total turnover will now amount to HRK 5bn (€671.4m), while the market share is set to rise from 6% to 10%. (esmmagazine.com)Finland: K Group's market share highest in 15 years
Finland's K Group's 2016 market share stood at 37.7%, according to research conducted by Nielsen. The figure is the highest for the group in fifteen years and the company attributes part of this increase to a national shop opening hours liberalisation, the decrease in the food price level, and to the acquisition of Suomen Lähikauppa. According to Nielsen’s Grocery Shop Directory, K-food stores’ market share was up 3.4% to 36.2% in 2016. Add to that Suomen Lähikauppa’s 1.5% market share following the acquisition and the market share rises to 37.7%. (esmmagazine.com) Israel's largest supermarket buys Pharm
Super-Sol, Israel’s largest supermarket chain, said Sunday it had signed an agreement to buy the New Pharm drugstore chain for 130m shekels ($35.6m) from Hamashbir 365 Holdings. (haaretz.com)Coop Norway sees profit growth of NOK 2.1bn in 2016
Coop Norway has posted a pre-tax profit increase of NOK 2.1bn (€230m) in full-year 2016, with the group's total revenue rising NOK 4.9bn to NOK 58bn (€6.32bn) for the year. The group said that its improved performance was due to a 'very successful integration of the stores from the acquisition of ICA Norway', a process that was completed last year. (esmmagazine.com) Croatia: Agrokor's new CRO, Alvarez, announces bank support
Antonio Alvarez III, head of Europe at Alvarez & Marsal, and recently appointed acting chief restructuring officer (CRO) at Agrokor, has announced the ongoing support of the banks for the business. This support, Alvarez said, was given on condition of the funds being given priority status on a brand new law just passed through the Croatian parliament that deals with the extraordinary administration of companies with systemic importance. (esmmagazine.com) Ireland: Independent grocers unite to fight Aldi/Lidl
A Fora analysis of An Bord Pleanála documents has found that the Retail Grocery Dairy & Allied Trades Association (RGDATA) has tried to block the construction of 22 Aldi or Lidl supermarkets, as well as five unbranded ‘discount stores’, in the past decade. The majority of the appeals to the planning board were made in the last five years. (thejournal.ie)