Marketing

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Food Marketing Institute on Monday honored three supermarket executives for their achievements in the industry during FMI’s Midwinter Executive Conference here, the association announced.

The appointment of 16-year Target veteran John Mulligan as the company’s new CFO makes a lot of sense as Target will benefit from continuity of leadership in its finance department.

Target stores in Canada will have pharmacies, but the company will employ a franchise operating model as opposed to direct ownership as is the case in the United States.

The company said it plans to operate pharmacies in as many of its stores in Canada as possible and will begin its search for pharmacist franchise owners in March.

Pleasanton, Calif. -- Safeway Inc. named Lori Raya as president of its Vons division.

In her most recent position as senior VP, Main Meal, Raya had responsibility for the company's largest portfolio of center-store business units including ingredients, beverages and snacks.

Woodland Hills, Calif. -- Landmark Retail Group, a subsidiary of NewMark Merrill Cos., announced that Clay Toombs has joined the company as senior project manager, responsible for overseeing development projects from design through entitlement approvals, permitting and construction.

Toombs previously worked for Evergreen Devco Inc. as senior project manager.
 

West Bridgewater, Mass. -- Shaw’s Supermarkets has reopened its store in Ludlow, Vt. The store had been closed after being severely damaged by flooding in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene.

In addition to repairing the damage from the flooding, Shaw’s invested additional resources to remodel the store, including expanding the store to 19,000 sq. ft., upgrading equipment and adding to offerings in several key categories.

Seattle -- Starbucks Coffee Corp. has entered into a joint venture with Tata Global Beverages Limited that will result in the opening of the first-ever Starbucks locations in India. The 50/50 joint venture, called TATA Starbucks Limited, will own and operate Starbucks cafés, which will be branded as Starbucks Coffee “A Tata Alliance.” (Tata Global Beverages is the world’s second largest tea company and Asia’s largest coffee plantation company.)

Paris -- Carrefour, the second largest retailer in the world after Wal-Mart Stores, has selected French retailing veteran Georges Plassat, 62, as its next CEO and chairman.

Walmart will report fourth-quarter and full-year results in a few weeks, and the numbers, while they are sure to be extraordinarily large, will pale in comparison to the superlative-defying figures that Apple posted earlier this week.

Sam’s has enjoyed accelerating same-store sales growth the past two years, and to keep that momentum going chief merchandising officer Linda Hefner is looking for a few good suppliers to commit to a new joint business planning process.