Supermarket/Grocery

Mahopac, N.Y. -- Heidenberg Properties announced The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company has executed a lease to occupy 54,000 sq. ft. at Lake Plaza Shopping Center in Mahopac, New York.

The new Stop & Shop will be built from the ground up, replacing the existing 24,000 sq. ft. Key Food and the 7,800 sq. ft. CVS. This redevelopment will be more than 25,000 sq. ft. larger than the two existing stores, expanding Lake Plaza Shopping Center from 141,000 to over 166,000 sq. ft.

Whole Foods had a difficult 2015 that included falling sales and stock value, as well as a pricing scandal. However, as Marketplace Business reports, Whole Foods is looking to regain its footing in 2016 with help from a redesigned, IT-centric customer experience. [Marketplace Business]

The leading retail associations — including the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Food Marketing Institute, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and the National Retail Federation — gave a mixed reaction to new waste management proposals by the Environmental Protection Agency.

While the associations called the proposed regulations a “step forward,” they also expressed concern about how the rules would impact the disposal of unsold consumer products and pharmaceuticals by stores.

Costco Wholesale Corporation on Wednesday reported net sales of $12.5 billion for the month of December, which includes the five weeks ended Jan. 3, 2016, an increase of 3%.

For the 18 weeks ended Jan. 3, 2016, the company reported net sales of $41.7 billion, an increase of 2%.

Comparable sales across Costco's U.S. network were up 3% across both time frames.

Supervalu Inc. on Thursday moved closer to spinning off its Save-A-Lot division as a public company, filing a plan with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under the plan, Supervalu shareholders will own at least 80.1% of the spun-off company. The stock would be publicly traded under an as-of-yet unidentified ticker. Supervalu did not set a deadline for taking Save-A-Lot public.

In 2016, retail chains will continue to face increasing competition and high consumer expectations. Changing regulations will also impact retail businesses. We see the regulatory issues below as the most critical for the retail industry this year and beyond.

Having just inked a deal to serve as a mobile and online payment platform for Walmart, MasterCard is looking to devices to widen its range in the digital payment space and has even launched a new grocery initiative.

For many years, retail IT was dominated by a traditional “enterprise” model. Using a large, centralized physical server or database, retailers would deploy core business solutions. POS terminals and customer engagement applications primarily served as data collection tools to assist back-end enterprise operations.