Supermarket/Grocery

GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — Dollar General announced its plans to expand its operations to California in 2012.

The California announcement comes on the heels of the company’s planned expansions into three new states in 2011 — Connecticut, Nevada and New Hampshire. California would be Dollar General’s 39th state.

The company said it plans to serve shoppers in rural, suburban and metropolitan markets.

Walmart took prices up in April, and the average gap with competitors narrowed to 16.8% from 17.8% the prior month, according to the most recent monthly survey of prices conducted in the Dallas and Chicago markets by Credit Suisse. The firm also found that Walmart has been among the most aggressive in terms of passing through inflation to customers. During the past three months, Walmart’s prices on the 60 food, health and beauty and household items the firm tracks each month increased 2% during the past three months and over the past year prices have risen by 3.6%.

Walmart CFO Charles Holley participated in the Citi Global Consumer Conference this past Tuesday, and he had the challenge of appearing just one week after Walmart released first-quarter results. Given the timing, it would have been reasonable to expect that he wouldn’t have a lot of new information to share, and while he certainly covered a lot of familiar ground, there was one area that stood out.

The warehouse club channel remains one of the hottest segments in retail as evidenced by the solid third-quarter results Costco reported earlier this week on the heels of the equally solid first-quarter results Sam’s Club reported last week.

Although the company’s operate on different fiscal years, the quarterly periods are comparable with only one week separating Costco’s May 8 third-quarter end date from Sam’s Club’s April 30 end date.

Walmart has pledged $1 million in relief efforts to help the tornado victims in Joplin, Mo. It also is working to direct truckloads of water, food and other basic items to Joplin.

The company reported that its Joplin store number 59 was able to implement its severe weather safety plan and help save hundreds of lives. However, the Walmart store near Rangeline Road was significantly damaged, as the company reported the tornado went through the building causing some injuries and fatalities.

BRUSSELS — The Belgium-based parent company of Delhaize America, which operates such banners as Food Lion and Harveys in the United States, has elected new members to its board of directors.

Walmart is scheduled to hold its annual shareholders’ meeting one week from today, and the event is a tale of two meetings. One the one hand, there is the pageantry and puffery of the actual shareholders meeting, which runs from 7 a.m. to about 11 a.m. central time. If the company holds true to form the event will be a high-energy, star-studded affair that is long on style and short on substance with a dollop of official business thrown in. The event is designed primarily for the thousands of employees who attend from throughout the U.S.

New Delhi, India  — A Thursday report by Bloomberg said that India will announce new rules for foreign investment in retail by April 2012, which will pave the way for Wal-Mart Stores and Carrefour SA to open stores in the country.

 “We are much further down the process than people think,” said Junior Trade Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia in an interview with Bloomberg. “I think it is a huge opportunity” for India. 

New York —The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which is working its way through Chapter 11, will close 13 Suprefresh stores in the Baltimore area in  July because it can't find anyone to buy the properties, The Baltimore Sun reported.

Yonkers, N.Y.  — Forest City Enterprises announced that National Amusements’ Cinema de Lux has opened at its Westchester’s Ridge Hill mixed-use development in Yonkers, N.Y.

With 12 state-of-the-art auditoriums and wall-to-wall screens, Cinema de Lux also features the area’s first full-service restaurant, Studio 3. The opening comes just a few months before the first buyers prepare to move into their new homes at Monarch at Ridge Hill, the luxury condominium on Ridge Hill Boulevard.