Consumer Affairs & Relations

New York City -- A retail industry expert presented research Monday at the National Retail Federation convention in New York City that showed shoppers will continue to spend more this year, spurred by a slowly improving job market and an uptick in income.

However, Ira Kalish, director of global economics for Deloitte, added that enough shoppers are still struggling with their finances that any increase will be modest.

Dallas -- J. C. Penney Co. has named Michael Dastugue as executive VP and CFO. He served most recently as senior VP finance, and was responsible for directing the financial strategies of all J.C. Penney business units.

Dastugue succeeds Robert Cavanaugh, who will serve as an adviser to chairman and CEO Myron Ullman until his retirement in January 2012.
 

Minneapolis -- Christopher & Banks Corp. announced Monday that it has named Larry Barenbaum as president and CEO, effective immediately.

Barenbaum has served as Interim CEO since October 19, 2010.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Addressing customers' demand for affordable and nutritious meal options, Fresh & Easy is expanding its popular Eatwell line.

Building on the success of the Eatwell line, which launched last year, are such meal options as steak and spinach salad, spicy tomato chicken pasta and garlic alfredo salmon. The new meals range in price from $2.49 to $4.99.

Each Eatwell meal contains no more than 25% of the daily values for calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium (based upon a 2,000-calorie diet).

NEW YORK - Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announced that Kelli Turner will step down as the company's CFO and will be leaving to join a private company in the near future. A search for MSLO's new CFO is currently underway, the company reported. In the interim, MSLO controller Allison Jacques will serve as the company's principal financial and accounting officer.

Not that anyone ever forgets Walmart is a really big company, but every now and then a fresh reminder surfaces. That was the case this week with an announcement by Datacert, Inc., that Walmart had selected its Passport technology platform to help manage domestic legal processes and systems. Big companies that make a lot of money tend to get sued a lot, and in Walmart’s case the situation is magnified by the fact that it has more than two million employees interacting each week with 200 million customers in its 8,000 stores.

An expanding number of consumers in search of value and an improved shopping experience at Family Dollar propelled the company to its strongest first-quarter same-store sales increase in 12 years, but profits for the period and the earnings outlook were below analysts’ estimates.

“Our comparable-store sales increase of 6.9% is the best first quarter result we’ve delivered in more than 12 years,” said Family Dollar chairman and CEO Howard Levine

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Winn-Dixie Stores announced that Laurence Appel, who joined Winn-Dixie in 2002 and formerly served as general counsel, corporate secretary and SVP human resources, has been named SVP retail operations. Appel replaces Frank Eckstein, who has retired from his current role but will continue to serve in an advisory capacity until the end of fiscal year 2011. 

New York City -- Reports circulated Wednesday that several potential suitors, including Sears Holdings and Urban Outfitters, have been studying J. Crew’s books. Urban Outfitters is seriously weighing a counterbid for the high-flying preppy retailer, according to a report in The New York Times. At least two other private-equity firms are also receiving confidential data on the New York-based retailer, Bloomberg reported.

New York City -- Starbucks unveiled a new logo Wednesday, dropping the circle with the words “Starbucks” and “Coffee” that surround its signature mermaid.

Starbucks, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, said the changes represent a fresh look for the company as it begins the next chapter in its history and emphasizes selling Starbucks-brand products in supermarkets and other channels beyond its retail stores.