Convenience Stores

NEW YORK — Search engine giant Google announced the launch of Google Wallet, a mobile payment service that allows consumers to pay for goods via their smartphones. The application is currently being field-tested in San Francisco and New York, and will be available to consumers in the summer.

New York City -- Mom’s Organic Market has opened its seventh store, in Timonium, Md. Along with featuring 100%-certified organic produce, and organic and natural grocery products, the new Mom’s was built with the environment in mind.

"We believe that we are the most environmentally-responsible grocery chain in the country," said Scott Nash, who founded Mom's in 1987 with a $100 investment, in a report in The Gourmet Retailer.

DENVER, Colo. and MONTREAL — Molson Coors Brewing Company has announced that Andrew Molson, the current vice chairman of the Molson Coors board of directors assumed the role of chairman, and Pete Coors, current chairman, assumed the role of vice chairman, effective May 26. 

New York City -- Consumers grew more confident in May amid job gains and slightly declining gas prices. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment increased to a three-month high of 74.3 from 69.8 in April.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected the index to be unchanged from the preliminary figure. At the same time, income expectations remained at low levels.

New York City -- The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) has announced the Outstanding Specialty Food Retailers of 2011. The winners are: Central Market, Austin, Texas; Fromagination, Madison, Wisc.; Olives Gourmet Grocer, Long Beach, Calif.; The Cheese Iron, Portland, Maine; The Fresh Market, Greensboro, N.C.; and ZZest Market & Café, Rochester, Minn.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Fred's net income increased 16% to $9.5 million, or 24 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of $8.2 million, or 21 cents per diluted share in the year-earlier period.

The retailer said that total sales rose 3% to $484.4 million from $471.6 million for the same period last year. For comps, Fred's reported a 1% rise on top of a 2.2% increase for the first quarter last year.

Fred's gross profit for first quarter 2011 increased 1% to $137.9 million from $136.9 million in the prior-year period.

New York —The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which is working its way through Chapter 11, will close 13 Suprefresh stores in the Baltimore area in  July because it can't find anyone to buy the properties, The Baltimore Sun reported.

CITY OF COMMERCE, Calif. — 99 Cents Only Stores announced that retail sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, a 14-week period, were $366.4 million, compared with $328.6 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, a 13-week period. The additional week included in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 contributed an additional $26.9 million of retail sales, the company reported. Same-store sales, calculated on a comparable 13-week period, increased 0.5%