Supermarket/Grocery

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Regional grocer Meijer said Tuesday it will hire 12,000 new employees in preparation for the 2012 holiday shopping season. Most positions will be part-time.

According to Janet Emerson, executive VP of operations for Meijer, “Our goal is to deliver the best customer experience and the lowest prices, and as we continue to grow it's so important that we have the right levels of staff and the right people in those roles."

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Hy-Vee is showing its commitment to health by joining the efforts to make its home state of Iowa the healthiest in the nation.

More than 100 Hy-Vee stores will take part in the second Healthiest State Walk on Oct. 3.

LAKELAND, Fla.— Publix on Monday announced its board of directors declared a semi-annual dividend on its common stock of 30 cents per share. The dividend will be payable and mailed Dec. 3, 2012, to stockholders of record as of the close of business Oct. 31, 2012.

Chicago -- An online grocery delivery service is launching "virtual grocery stores" at commuter rail stations across the country.

Peapod.com, owned by the U.S. subsidiary of Dutch supermarket operator Royal Ahold, announced it would launch more than 100 of the virtual grocery stores at commuter rail stations in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, New Jersey and Connecticut. Commuters in the markets Peapod serves spend an hour in transit to and from work each day, according to Census data.

Beachwood, Ohio -- DDR Corp. announced Monday the acquisition of $328 million of prime assets and the disposition of $12 million of non-prime assets during the quarter.

Year to date, the company closed $2 billion of acquisitions, including the joint venture with Blackstone's flagship real estate fund, and disposed of $137 million of non-prime assets.

As of the third quarter, DDR said it has raised gross common equity capital of $435 million through the issuance of 31.7 million new common shares to fund investments and lower leverage.

Springfield, Mass. -- Charter Realty & Development Corp. said that it has arranged for a 2,500-sq.-ft. lease for McDonald’s located in the Springfield Plaza in Springfield, Mass.

Springfield Plaza is a 550,000-sq.-ft. center anchored by Kmart, Rocky's, TJ Maxx, Ocean State Job Lot, Savers, Stop & Shop and Entertainment Cinema. McDonald’s will be locating on a site formerly occupied by KFC. Construction is expected to start shortly, said Charter.

Washington, D.C. -- Douglas Development announced that Lime Fresh Mexican Grill will open a 2,000-sq.-ft. restaurant in the Douglas Development-owned property at 726 7th Street in Penn Quarter.

The space is currently occupied by Potbelly Sandwich Works and is scheduled to open as Lime Fresh Mexican Grill in mid-2013.
 

Pricing studies conducted this week by Wall Street analysts yielded familiar results.

Deutsche Bank analyst Charles Grom and Citigroup analyst Deb Weinswig issued reports this week comparing Walmart’s prices to dollar stores and conventional supermarkets and Target.

Redwood Shores, Calif. -- Convenient access to the information that drives purchase decisions is the main reason shoppers go online, according to a new survey conducted by the e-tailing group and sponsored by Oracle. Eighty-one percent of the respondents said that ease of research and comparison shopping were the top reasons they shop online. And increasingly, they are doing it across product categories, including staples. Seventy-five percent research tech purchases online before deciding to buy, and 50% said they do the same for commodity products.

New York -- A new report from PwC US and Kantar Retail suggests that the retail industry may be transitioning to a 'post-modern' consumer-centric era triggered by the speed of technological advancements, globalization and hyper-competition, both online and offline.

The Retailing 2020 report recommended that successful retailers will need to transform themselves to grow in an increasingly polarized world of greater channel fragmentation that will result in greater non-store retail growth and smaller retail formats.