US: C&S brings retailers more supply-chain visibility
C&S Wholesale Grocers is giving supermarkets and other customers a real-time view of incoming deliveries via a new predictive supply-chain platform. Through a partnership with Chicago-based FourKites, C&S sends retailers logic-based messages - called C&S Delivery Alerts - to track store deliveries in real time, including when a truck has left the warehouse, when it is about an hour away and when it has arrived. This provides customers “unprecedented visibility” into their delivery status, the Keene, New Hampshire-based grocery distributor said.
Source: supermarketnews.com
US: Wegmans to open its 100th store on Sunday; it will happen in North Carolina
Wegmans is reaching a milestone this coming weekend. The Rochester-based company will be opening its 100th supermarket. And that new store will open in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is the supermarket chain’s first store in North Carolina, and spokeswoman Jo Natale says that plans are moving ahead for five additional stores in the Raleigh-Durham area over the next several years. Natale notes that Raleigh already is home to a lot of people who have moved from the Western and Central New York area, and who have been clamoring for Wegmans to open up stores there.
Source: wxxinews.org
US: Natural Grocers plans to open first Louisiana store
Natural Grocers will open a store in Lafayette, Louisiana, on Wednesday, October 9, providing the community with access to the highest-quality organic and natural groceries at Always AffordableSM prices. The store, located at 1925 Kaliste Saloom Road, will open at 8:30 a.m., and customers will have the chance to win up to $100 per week in free groceries for six months. The Natural Grocers store in Lafayette will become the retailer's first store in Louisiana.
Source: prnewswire.com
US: Stop & Shop introduces reduced-emissions fuel program
The Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. has launched Restore reduced-emissions fuel program at 105 of the chain’s fuel stations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. When customers fill their gas tanks, the program calculates and offsets tailpipe emissions through investments in certified carbon-reduction projects such as reforestation, and renewable-energy initiatives such as wind and solar, reducing the harmful effects of those emissions by as much as 30%. According to the grocer, the program is the first of its kind in New England.
Source: progressivegrocer.com
US: Kroger opens two-level store in downtown Cincinnati with first-ever food hall
The Kroger Co. opened a new, 52,000-square-foot urban format store in downtown Cincinnati, offering the grocer's first-ever food hall, named On The Rhine Eatery. The experience features Cincinnati eateries Django Western Taco, DOPE! Asian Street Fare, Eli's BBQ and Queen City Whip, as well as Kitchen 1883 Café and Bar, Kroger's American food restaurant concept. The new two-level Kroger store features grab-and-go and ready-to-heat meals for lunch and dinner, in addition to fresh fruits and vegetables and a traditional grocery shopping experience. The store offers an exclusive Starbucks coffee blend as well as a walk-up window for beverage orders. Located in the city's central business district and accessible to downtown workers and residents as well as customers from the historic Over-the-Rhine and West End neighborhoods, the store anchors an 18-story residential high-rise and is located a block away from Kroger's national headquarters.
Source: prnewswire.com
US: Whole Foods using New York WaterMaker to make baked goods
Whole Foods Markets has installed New York WaterMaker (NYWM), billed as “the world's first water source replication/customization system”, in the Austin, Texas-based grocer’s new state-of-the-art test kitchen in Rockville, Maryland, its mid-Atlantic regional headquarters, for the creation of signature baked goods. The installation marks NYWM’s entry into the grocery industry. “We’re looking forward to continuing innovation and experimentation to make the best baked goods possible and testing the system,” said Kristen Robinson, Whole Foods’ culinary senior team leader for the Mid-Atlantic region.
Source: progressivegrocer.com
7-Eleven Philippines sells Bitcoin
The cryptocurrency can now be bought at all 7-Eleven stores across the country. Abra has formed a partnership with ECPay to sell Bitcoin for cash in the Philippines. Abra is a well-known cryptocurrency investment app company and ECPay a payment processor firm. The partnership will introduce cryptocurrency to 6,000 locations across the Philippines, including all 7-Eleven convenience stores. The move is to simplify access to Bitcoin and bring it closer everyday shoppers.
Source: retailanalysis.igd.com
Amazon launches Israel operations
Amazon has launched retail operations in Israel, offering local delivery to shoppers from a range of Israeli brands. The website is initially available in English, with the Hebrew website expected to go live in the coming weeks. Product prices are in shekels, with a feature to filter out products from other markets. Local delivery should mean that shoppers receive their order quicker.
Source: retailanalysis.igd.com
Spain, France, Belgium and Italy: Metro Group expanding its partnership with food waste app
Food rescue app, Too Good To Go, is expanding its partnership with Metro Group, following a successful trial in Germany and the Netherlands. Metro Group will now launch the app in Spain, France, Belgium and Italy. The partnership was first launched in Germany in 2018, with over 12,000 meals saved so far across Germany and the Netherlands. The app allows users to rescue unsold meals from being sent to a landfill, by purchasing them at a discounted price. The meals have been sold at Metro headquarters, select store restaurants in Germany and in all 17 Metro stores in the Netherlands.
Source: retailanalysis.igd.com
India: BigBasket merges 2 core arms to speed up delivery
Online grocer BigBasket has merged two core businesses - on-demand 90-minute delivery and planned next-day orders - to supply a larger selection of items to its customers in less than 4 hours. The on-demand business offered a smaller range of products, while customers got to choose from a larger range in the case of next-day delivery. With the transition, however, the company will offer more than 85% items in 3-4 hours, while keeping select long-tail items for next-day delivery.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
China: Alibaba Group eyes 1bln users within five years
Alibaba Group says it aims to serve more than 1bln consumers and exceed RMB10tln gross merchandise volume by 2024. Unveiling the Chinese tech giant’s five-year plan to the investment community, Alibaba Group executive chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang said the company remains “true to the mission it laid out over 20 years ago” of making it easy to do business anywhere. He said empowering merchants with data technology and cloud intelligence is essential to fulfill this mission in the digital era. “Today, we are creating and fulfilling new consumption needs with a view to focus on growing our digital consumer population as a whole. We can unlock tremendous synergies between our various consumer-facing businesses to convert and harvest incremental customers across the Alibaba digital economy”, said Zhang.
Source: insideretail.asia
Research reveals 80% of UK shoppers describe themselves as ‘environmentally friendly’
The latest industry report from Shoppercentric, a leading independent shopper research consultancy, has been launched. The research, entitled: ‘WindowOn…Shoppers and Sustainability’ was carried out across 1018 UK shoppers aged 18+ from a nationally representative sample and explores the relationship shoppers have with sustainability - how they define it, look for these items and what would encourage them to purchase more. The research reveals that being ‘green’ has become the norm - with 80% of UK shoppers now describing themselves as being ‘environmentally friendly’ and 82% claim to consider ‘environmentally friendly’ labelling within their purchase decisions. A further 59% also claim to actively avoid particular types of packaging.
Source: retailtimes.co.uk
Jeronimo Martins' Polish unit under investigation for unfair practices
The Polish unit of Portuguese retail group Jeronimo Martins is under investigation for unfair dealings with suppliers to its discount supermarket chain Biedronka, Poland's competition watchdog UOKiK said. Biedronka, the leader in a fragmented Polish market in which it competes with Germany's Lidl and France's Carrefour and Auchan chains, could face a fine of up to 3% of annual revenue, UOKiK said. The regulator said Jeronimo Martins Polska used its strong position to negotiate a discount which concerned UOKiK.
Source: kfgo.com
Spain: DIA to hold EGM in October to raise capital
Spanish retailer DIA has announced that it is to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on 22 October to gain the approval of shareholders to carry out a capital increase of €605mln. The capital increase will be carried out by issuing 6,055.5mln new common shares for €0.10 per share, of which €0.01 correspond to the face value and €0.09 at issuance premium, amounting to a total of €605mln. The issuance will be made in the form of credit compensation and cash contributions with preferential subscription rights, and with the possibility of an incomplete subscription.
Source: esmmagazine.com
UK: Sainsbury's to close 60 Argos stores to cut costs
Sainsbury's is shutting another 60 to 70 Argos shops and moving them inside its supermarkets as part of a reorganisation. It will also close up to 15 supermarkets and 40 convenience stores. The closures are part of a plan to reduce costs by £500mln over five years, it said. However Sainsbury's also plans to open around 120 new grocery outlets, mostly convenience stores. The supermarket did not say where the closures would be, but said all Argos staff would be relocated.
Source: bbc.com
Israel: Discount Investment mulls sale of shares in retailer Shufersal
Discount Investment Corp said it was examining the sale of shares in Israeli retailer Shufersal. Discount owns 26% of Shufersal and is examining the sale of an undetermined amount of shares in the country’s largest supermarket chain to institutional investors via a tender in exchange for Discount bonds, it said in a regulatory filing. Discount said there was no certainty the sale would be made.
Source: reuters.com