Supermarket/Grocery

By David Asselin, [email protected]

WASHINGTON — U.S. retail sales declined during the month of June, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

U.S. retail and food services sales for the month, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $401.5 billion, an decrease of 0.5% from the previous month but 3.8% above the year-ago period. Retail trade sales were down 0.5% from last month but 3.5% above last year.

NEW YORK — It seems that traditional grocery stores and established food brands may lose their position in the market due to a confluence of changing demographics, economic factors and customer preferences, according to new research from global investment bank Jefferies and global business advisory firm AlixPartners.

AMSTERDAM — A division of Ahold USA has completed its acquisition of stores in the greater Philadelphia area.

Giant-Carlisle officially closed its acquisition of 15 Genuardi's stores, a subsidiary of Safeway. The deal was previously announced in January and was approved by the Federal Trade Commission last month.

As previously reported, during the conversion process, five stores at a time will temporarily close for about a week. The three-phase staggered approach is expected to be completed on July 22.

When Craig Herkert left Walmart a few years ago to become president and CEO of Supervalu the situation that unfolded earlier this week at the grocer was not what he had in mind.

Washington, D.C. -- Columbia, S.C.-based Edens said Wednesday that its new mixed-use development Mosaic will open this September in Washington, D.C.

Yikes! After a monstrous earnings miss, Supervalu suspended its earnings guidance and dividend and said it was exploring strategic alternatives.

No Wonder Walmart’s U.S. sales are on the upswing. Kantar’s Marx media solutions group this week in its mid-year report noted free standing insert pages for Walmart increased nearly 82% to 2.5 billion pages during the first half of the year.