Supermarket/Grocery

Tampa, Fla. -- Burger 21, founded by the owners of The Melting Pot Restaurants, has executed its first franchise agreement in Michigan, under which a debut restaurant in Ann Arbor will open summer 2015.

Additionally, the company signed two franchise agreements for single units in Ocala, Florida, and Raleigh, North Carolina. The new deals are part of the fast-casual concept's growth strategy to expand its presence in new and existing markets nationwide.

To date, Burger 21 has 13 open locations and 25 franchised restaurants in development.

Former Ahold and CVS executive Paula Price is the newest member of the Dollar General board of directors.

She joins the board of the 11,500 store retailer at a pivotal time. Dollar General is in the midst of a search for a top executive to succeed Rick Dreiling who has indicated he will step down next year and two of the company’s arch rivals, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, have announced plans to merge.

Profitero, a leading global provider of online insights and e-commerce intelligence for retailers and brands, has appointed Raj Khathuria as VP of sales for North America.

Khathuria has more than 17 years of sales management experience. He previously led the North American sales operation for MarkMonitor, a global leader in online brand protection (acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2012), where he was responsible for growth in key vertical markets including consumer goods, luxury apparel and electronics.

Retail trade event organizer Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing (ECRM) name media veteran Joseph Tarnowski to the newly created position of chief content officer.

Tarnowski will lead the development of ECRM’s content platform to deliver actionable information and insights to retail buyers and suppliers such as original research and insights from ECRM Data, the company’s business intelligence division.

Austin, Texas -- Market Basket Grocery Stores, a privately-owned grocer with 34 full-service supermarkets in the East Texas and Louisiana region, has renewed and expanded their agreement for Revionics Life Cycle Pricing Optimization. They expanded the agreement to also include Revionics Advanced Analytics services, such as the Key Value Item (KVI) Analysis, which will enable them to leverage science to better align their KVIs with shopper behavior and the competitive landscape.

Supervalu welcomed nearly 4,000 independent grocery retailers to St. Paul, Minn., this week for the grocery distributor’s inaugural national sales expo and trade show.

Atlanta - Retail spending growth was at an 11-month high in July as summer vacation travel led strong spending during the month, according to data reported by payment technology and services provider First Data Corporation. The First Data SpendTrend analysis looked at the period July 1 through 31, 2014, compared to July 2 through Aug. 1, 2013.

Cincinnati -- Phillips Edison-ARC Grocery Center REIT II Inc. has acquired Kipling Marketplace, adding a property in Colorado to the company's portfolio. Kipling Marketplace is a 90,124-sq.-ft. grocery store-anchored shopping center located in Littleton, Colorado, part of the Denver metropolitan statistical area.

Kipling Marketplace is anchored by a Safeway grocery store, the number two grocer in the Denver area. Other national and regional tenants at the center include Sylvan Learning, Dairy Queen, Cost Cutters, and H&R Block.