Retail

WinCo Foods plans to open its first discount supermarkets in Texas at 8 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 6. The 95,000-sq.-ft. stores will feature the company’s newest décor which highlights its project offering.

The Ft. Worth store, located at 8000 Crowley Lane, will initially employ approximately 180 individuals, 170 of whom are local hires, and the McKinney store, located at 1800 N. Graves St., will open with approximately 170 employees, 160 of whom are local hires.

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in January 2013 versus January 2014 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. The home improvement retailers appear to have reversed course somewhat. In previous months, Home Depot focused on smaller, denser circulars while Lowe’s typically featured many pages with few ads on each. While this is still generally true, Home Depot saw a moderate 25% increase in circular page count and Lowe’s doubled its number of ads per page and per circular.

Many fingers pointed at Target after the retailer suffered a massive data breach during the holidays, but preventing the next cyber attack is beyond the scope of any single company, according to testimony retail representatives shared with lawmakers on Monday.

General Mills is adding a new line of products to its roster. Consumers in the United States can find more than 50 new items from the company on store shelves, with dozens more to launch in international markets.

Some of the new offerings include:

L’Oréal Canada’s Javier San Juan has been appointed president of Latin America Hispanic Zone and president of L’Oréal Mexico.

Frank Kollmar will succeed San Juan as president of L'Oréal Canada. Kollmar was recently president of the Consumer Products Division in Canada. He began his career with L'Oréal Canada 15 years ago in the active cosmetics division. In 2003, he left to join the German subsidiary of the group, where he led an international career before returning to Canada in 2011.

Sports Authority has named Jeremy J. Aguilar as CFO. Aguilar was most recently at Hhgregg, where he has been CFO since 2009.

“Jeremy’s expertise in finance and accounting will play a critical role in further strengthening Sports Authority,” said CEO Michael E. Foss. “He will be a valuable asset to the team; we are thrilled to have him on board.”

Diane Sullivan is now CEO, president and chairman of the board of Brown Shoe Company. The company’s board of directors appointed her as chairman last June, and her new role became effective Feb. 2.

Vera Bradley has restructured its executive team and promoted key figures, effective immediately.

"We have a lot of talent and experience within our company, and these promotions and realignments will help position us for the future. I am confident that we are in the process of assembling the right team to achieve our long-term goals, drawing from both our own leadership team and attracting new talent to the organization," said CEO Robert Wallstrom.