Corporate Governance

Veteran Walmart store planner Jay Mitchael is a featured speaker at an upcoming event organized by Doing Business in Bentonville.

Mitchael, vp of store layout and space productivity at Walmart, is scheduled to speak Thursday, Nov. 13 at the Doing Business in Bentonville event which runs from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. in Rogers, Ark. Among the topics the organization said he will address are changes in store design, current prototype rollout and something called the space capture project.

Denver -- Quiznos continues to expand its international development with growth into seven countries in Asia and the Middle East. This is the latest addition to an international development strategy to open more than 1,000 restaurants in more than 40 countries by 2020 and will widen the company footprint abroad through the help of international master franchisees.  

By Nick Hidalgo, Redner’s Markets Inc.    The evolution of POS systems and other in-store innovations, such as self-service checkout and mobile payments, are changing how grocers serve their customers. While these solutions introduce convenience, they often result in a greater number of in-store devices and systems, as well as an increasingly complex computing network.  

Burlington has partnered with K.I.D.S./Fashion Delivers and ABC’s Good Morning America for its eighth annual Warm Coat Warm Hearts coat drive, themed around “Families Helping Families.” 

The coat drive, which kicks off on Saturday, November 1, 2014, will benefit K.I.D.S./Fashion Delivers, a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing apparel and other products donated by manufacturers and retailers to community charities across the U.S. and throughout the world. 

Salisbury, N.C. -- Meg Ham has been named president of Food Lion effective Nov. 1. She succeeds Beth Newlands Campbell, who is leaving the company for personal and professional reasons.     Ham will lead all Food Lion banner operations, including strategic direction, financial performance, product assortment, pricing, customer service and marketing. She will continue to report to Delhaize America CEO Kevin Holt.    

Mooresville, N.C. -- Lowe's Companies Inc. has named 3M, Stainmaster and Truper as the company's 2014 Vendor Partners of the Year. The companies were selected for their commitment to product quality, innovation and customer service.   

Seattle –- Starbucks Corp. topped off a generally successful fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 by swinging to net income of $587.9 million from net loss of $1.23 billion the fourth quarter of the prior fiscal year. The removal of a one-time arbitration charge of $2.8 billion helped bring Starbucks into the black.  

Camp Hill, Penn. –- Same-store sales increased 5.5% in Oct. 2014 at Rite Aid Corp. compared to the same month in the prior year. Total drugstore sales rose 5% to $2.06 billion compared to $1.96 billion.   October front-end same store-sales increased 2%. Pharmacy same-store sales, which included a negative impact from new generic introductions, increased 7.1%.