Ahold Delhaize

Ahold on Monday announced that the King of the Netherlands has honored its request to use the predicate “Koninklijke” (“Royal”) after its intended merger with Delhaize Group.

Upon completion of the proposed merger, the statutory name of the combined company will be “Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V.”

Sharing detailed data with vendors is an idea that has been around since the 1990s, and is gaining new life at Ahold USA Inc.

Ahold, parent company of supermarkets Giant Landover, Stop & Shop New England, Stop & Shop New York Metro, Giant Carlisle, and online grocery Peapod, has partnered with Retail Solutions Inc. (RSI) to introduce shared enterprise business processes with vendors. Ahold USA has leveraged RSI’s data platform and collaboration tools to better align its business goals and daily priorities with its vendor partners.

Ahold USA is following a cue from other retail giants in announcing that its companies' private label shell eggs will be 100% cage-free by 2022.

Ahold USA says its retail divisions – Stop & Shop, Giant Food of Landover, Giant Food Stores of Carlisle, Martin's and online grocer Peapod – now offer cage-free, free-range, organic, and traditional egg varieties for its customers.  Approximately 80% of all eggs sold among Ahold USA companies are sold as "Own Brands" or private label.

Landover, Maryland-based Giant Food is joining the trend of retailers making online deliveries to places beyond consumer homes.

The Peapod by Giant online delivery service is now allowing Washington, D.C.-area shoppers to place their orders online and pick them up at one of three Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) stations: Fort Totten, Glenmont and Vienna. Peapod is an online grocer that shares its Ahold parent company with Giant and will execute deliveries for the service.

Delhaize Group’s Food Lion division is enjoying success with an extensive transformation initiative called “easy, fresh and affordable,” as it works to complete

Schnucks Markets on Monday named industry veteran Mark Doiron its new chief merchant. Doiron, who has more than 25 years of experience in the food and grocery industries, will be responsible for procurement and merchandising throughout Schnucks’ 99 supermarkets. He serves on the company’s senior management team and reports to Schnucks chairman and CEO Todd Schnuck.

Their merger isn’t expect to close until-mid 2016, but Ahold and Delhaize Group have named more senior executives to interesting new roles to lead the combined company.

Ahold and Delhaize Group announced more members of the proposed executive committee of the combined company to be known as Ahold Delhaize. As previously announced in June, the proposed Ahold Delhaize management board consists of CEO Dick Boer, Deputy CEO and Chief Integration Officer Frans Muller, CFO Jeff Carr, COO Europe Pierre Bouchut, COO USA Kevin Holt, and COO USA James McCann.

Amazon.com just picked up an improved rival in the burgeoning home shopping button market, which it provided mainstream attention with the launch of its Dash remote ordering device earlier this year.

San Jose-based technology vendor Hiku just launched version 2 of its eponymous shopping button tool. Ironically, Hiku actually released version 1 of the button shortly before Amazon launched its Dash button, but was overshadowed.