Supermarket/Grocery

Supermarket chain Raley's Family of Fine Stores has hired an Austin, Texas-based company to help it launch a new social media rewards program.

Boston – Doug Rauch, former president of Trader Joe’s, reportedly plans to open a pilot store that will charge reduced prices for food that is damaged or expired, but still safe to eat. According to the Boston Globe, The Daily Table will open in the urban Dorchester neighborhood of Boston during 2014 and offer services that are a mix of features offered in supermarkets and restaurants.

Raj Jain, the former head of a joint venture between Walmart and Bharti Enterprises, has joined Bharti Retail as CEO.

Jain spent six years with the joint venture, Bharti Walmart, most recently serving as president of Walmart India. He left the joint venture in June 2013, four months before Walmart and Bharti announced they would independently pursue retail opportunities in India.

Joining Jain at Bharti Retail is his former joint venture colleague Panka Madan who will serve as CFO. Madan also served as CFO of Bharti Walmart but left the joint venture in 2012.

Oak Brook, Ill. — Inland Real Estate Income Trust has acquired the 159,258-sq.-ft. Wedgewood Commons Shopping Center in Olive Branch, Miss., a southeastern suburb of Memphis, Tenn. The purchase price was $33.9 million.

The property consists of four buildings and an existing structure suitable for the development of an additional 10,838 sq. ft. of leasable space, which would increase the center’s retail space to just over 170,000 sq. ft.

New York — Due to the holiday rush and related closings, sister publication Chain Store Age has extended the deadline for its 32nd annual Retail Store of the Year Design Competition until Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014.

City of Commerce, Calif. — 99 Cents Only Stores opens its first store in Waco, Texas on Thursday, Jan. 9. The new store is approximately 13,000 square feet and will feature a perishable food department, including produce, dairy and frozen foods.

99 Cents Only Stores currently operates 339 extreme value retail stores consisting of 244 stores in California, 45 in Texas, 33 in Arizona, and 17 in Nevada.

Birmingham, Ala. — Online meal planning service eMeals is offering retailer-specific make-at-home menus of 500 calories or less per serving as part of its new Low Calorie Menu Plan. Consumers can specify a store such as Aldi, Kroger, Publix, Safeway, Target, Walmart or Whole Foods to take advantage of sale prices that help shape eMeals' weekly menus.

The New Year began in unconventional fashion for retailers in Colorado where legal sales of marijuana by specialty shops are creating wide-ranging ramifications for other retailers.

Products with curious sounding names such as Trainwreck and Sour Diesel went on sales early Wednesday morning at shops in Colorado where residents can buy up to one ounce per day after voters in 2012 approved an amendment to the state constitution. A similar measure was passed in Washington state and stores there are expected to begin marijuana sales later this year.