Supermarket/Grocery

Target is looking for a low to mid-single digit increase in July same-store sales even though it posted a June increase of 4.5% that exceeded analysts’ estimates and came in at the high end of the company’s range of anticipated results. 

JACKSON, Miss. — Cal-Maine Foods announced that the company has named Todd Walters VP operations, effective July 11. Walters will have responsibility for all of Cal-Maine Foods’ production and processing facilities located in Texas.

Minneapolis -- Supervalu on Monday that it is not removing the self check-out lanes from the 460 Albertsons stores that it owns and operates in Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, Southern California, Utah, Washington state and Wyoming.

New York City -- British retail giant Tesco Ltd. has broken new ground, creating virtual stores in subway stations in Seoul, South Korea, as a way to make grocery shopping more convenient for the city’s busy urban residents. Tesco launched the unique venture for its Homeplus chain, which operates 115 stores in South Korea. The virtual stores were created by Cheil Worldwide of Korea.

Denver -- Qdoba Mexican Grill announced Friday that it has opened a new location at Janss Marketplace, located in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

This is the first Qdoba location in Thousand Oaks, and the 12th location in Southern California for the chain.
 

Indio, Calif. -- Jacksonville, Fla.-based Regency Centers announced that Party City has opened Coachella Valley’s first store, at Regency’s Indio Towne Center, in Indio, Calif.

The new 20,390-sq.-ft. store will open this fall, joining an under-construction Toys “R” Us/Babies “R” Us, also slated to open in the fall.

BOISE, Idaho — Albertsons is pulling the plug on its self-checkout units, which will be replaced by standard "H" lanes or express lanes, the grocer has confirmed.

The 217-store grocer has self-checkout units installed in roughly 100 of its stores. Those units will be removed by the end of the summer.

According to the grocer, the self-checkout units prevent it from providing the level of customer service it wants to offer its shoppers.

Boise, Idaho -- Albertsons LLC said Friday it is eliminating the self-checkout lanes in all 217 stores, beginning this month.

According to the supermarket retailer, the self-checkout option precludes Albertsons from providing the desired level of customer service.

In place of self-checkout, which it introduced in its stores about 10 years ago, Albertsons said it is considering a modified express lane concept.
 

Purchase, N.Y. -- A report released Thursday by MasterCard Advisors, which tracked sales activity in the MasterCard payments network coupled with cash and check estimates, said that June sales continued May’s mixed bag with some sectors gaining and some losing momentum.

MINNEAPOLIS - The 4.5% increase in same-store sales Target reported for June was at the high end of the company’s expectations and came on top of a prior year increase of 1.7%. The gain was driven primarily by an increase in average transaction size while growth in the overall volume of transactions appeared to moderate somewhat.

Target chairman, president and CEO Gregg Steinhafel said he was very pleased with the company’s performance at the upper end of a guidance range that called for a low-to-mid single-digit improvement.