Supermarket/Grocery

Oakville, Canada - Tim Hortons has released its fifth annual Sustainability and Responsibility Report, highlighting the company's 2014 performance results. Key accomplishments in 2014 include:

• Introduced Calorie Aware menu boards across Canada to highlight breakfast products under 350 calories.

• Increased the number of farmers who participated in the Tim Hortons Coffee Partnership Projects to a total of 4,830 farmers.

Chicago -- Self-service kiosks got a nod from the Millennial generation, as a new survey released by location-based mobile platform Retale showed that 20% of Millennial shoppers don’t like interacting with cashiers at checkout.

The survey examined consumer self-service checkout (SSK) adoption and preferences among brick-and-mortar retailers, focusing on SSK experiences, and evaluating convenience, challenges and desired improvements.

Research highlights include:

Smart & Final Stores Inc. credited strong merchandising and marketing initiatives with the retailer's impressive jump in same store sales for the first quarter.

Minneapolis – Net earnings at Supervalu Inc. fell 14% to $36 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 from $42 million in the identical period a year earlier. Higher selling and administrative expenses, including store closure and benefit costs, helped reduce profits.

Hy-Vee is joining the legion of grocery chains with online ordering, delivery and store pickup.

According to KCCI-TV in Des Moines, Iowa, the regional supermarket is rolling out a service called Aisles Online in select stores.

The news site quotes Hy-Vee as saying that the average order has about 30 items and takes a worker about a half-hour to compile. The items are scanned, loaded up and delivered. Or customers can pick them up at the store. Delivery costs $4.95 per order, and pick-up costs $2.95 per order, with the charges dropped for orders of $100 or more.

Cost-conscious consumers are continuing to seek out bargains at Supervalu's stores, prompting the company's profit to soar 50% in the fourth quarter.

Cincinnati -- Kroger said Monday that it has ended a 12-year joint venture with British consumer data company Dunnhumby and launched its own customer data subsidiary.
 
The new subsidiary will help Kroger set prices in stores and decide which shoppers get certain coupons.  The ending of the joint venture comes after Dunnhumby's parent company, Tesco PLC, said it was seeking strategic options for Dunnhumby.

New York -- The National Association of Chain Drug Stores announced during its Annual Meeting, the election of new officers, four new executive committee members and five new board of directors member for the coming year.
 
Randy Edeker, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Hy-Vee will serve as the new NACDS chairman of the board of directors. Edeker succeeds John Standley, chairman and chief executive officer of Rite Aid.
 

By Xavier Giandominici, FIME America

The U.S. is migrating to EMV chip technology to reduce counterfeit card fraud and promote global interoperability. And though the transition is more than three years in, many small and midsized merchants, VARs, ISOs and ISVs are only starting to learn about the EMV standard and beginning implementation project plans.

Sunbury, Pa. — Weis Markets has promoted Brent Mertes to regional VP where he will oversee the day-to-day operations of 51 stores located in South Central Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia.

He will report to David Gose, senior VP, operations.