Supermarket/Grocery

Washington, D.C. -- The average American celebrating the Easter holiday in 2014 will spend an average of $137.46 on apparel, food, candy, gifts and more. According to the National Retail Federation’s Easter Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, this is slightly less than the $145.13 spent last year.

Fort Worth, Texas — The Fresh Market and Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria will open locations at WestBend, a mixed-use development in Fort Worth, Texas, owned by Trademark Property Co.

Minneapolis -- Target Corp. is introducing “Made to Matter – Handpicked by Target.” The collection brings together 17 natural, organic and sustainable brands to introduce new products.

Compton, Calif. -- Ralphs will open a new Ralphs Fresh Fare store in Sherman Oaks, Calif., on April 10. The new 72,000-sq.-ft.store replaces an older Ralphs that operated for 42 years from the same location before it was closed in 2012, and will employ about 240 full- and part-time workers.

Target is expanding its sustainable products offering with a new collection called “Made to Matter — Handpicked by Target.”

Average spending per person is forecast to decline this Easter despite pent up demand from a long cold winter, according to new consumer research from the National Retail Federation.

Ready Pac Foods has hired Peter Laport as the company’s SVP, chief supply chain officer.  

"After working with Peter for many years at Nestlé, I knew that he was the perfect fit for Ready Pac," said CEO Tony Sarsam. "Peter has worldwide experience in supply chain and manufacturing that will aid tremendously in cultivating profitable business processes within operations. I am delighted to work with him again and excited that he is joining our innovative team."

First it was signage and then came the freezer case and parking lots. Now Walmart and GE are moving forward with their biggest lighting initiative to date.

The companies announced plans to use GE LED lights in ceiling fixtures in hundreds of stores throughout the U.S., Asia, Latin Amerian and the United Kingdom. The new fixtures use 40% less energy than traditional overhead lighting systems and move Walmart forward on its goal of reducing energy required to power its buildings globally by 20% by 2020. It is Walmart’s largest purchase of GE LED lighting to date.

New York -- Meijer is testing an automated system that speeds up the checkout process at its store in Jenison, Mich. The system, from NCR, automatically scans merchandise. It became available customers on April 3, according to MichiganLive.

As shoppers place merchandise on a conveyor belt, the items are scanned, and then sent to one of three collection areas, where customers bag them.

Salisbury, N.C. – Delhaize America has entered into a multi-year agreement for Revionics Life Cycle Price Optimization solutions, which include Revionics Price Optimization, Revionics Promotion Optimization and Revionics Markdown Optimization. The agreement also includes Revionics Advanced Analytics services: key value item (KVI) analysis, item clustering and market basket analysis.