Supply Chain & Merchandising

Austin, Texas -- Whole Foods Market on Tuesday reported a profit for its fiscal second quarter that fell short of Wall Street expectations. The grocery store operator also cut its outlook for the year.

For the quarter ended April 13, Whole Foods earned $142 million, unchanged from last year, amid higher expenses.

Revenue rose to $3.32 billion, short of the $3.34 billion Wall Street expected. Same-store sales rose 4.5%, hurt by the shift of Easter to the third quarter this year.

Planters has introduced four new peanut flavors to its product lineup. Consumers can now choose from Salted Caramel, Cocoa, Chipotle and Smoked flavors.

The brand incorporated both culinary trends and fan feedback when developing the new varieties, which pack up to 7 g of protein and at least four essential nutrients per serving.

New York -- Amazon has entered into a partnership with Twitter whereby Twitter users can link their accounts to an Amazon account, and add items to the shopping cart by responding to any tweet with an Amazon product link that has the hashtag #AmazonCart.

In order to take advantage of the service, customers have to connect their Amazon account to their Twitter account, which they can do via amazon.com/AmazonCart.

Office Depot said it plans to close 400 of its 2,000 stores as it looks to realize efficiencies related to its merger with OfficeMax.

An estimated 150 of the stores will close this year, according to company, which reported first quarter results and continued weakness in same store sales. The company anticipates that the closures will generate annual run-rate synergies of at least $75 million by the end of 2016 and will begin to be accretive to earnings in 2015.

Phoenix -- Leslie’s Poolmart announced plans to grand open three retail locations on May 9. The stores are located in: Los Banos, California; Utica, Michigan; and Jackson, Tennessee.

In total, Leslie's plans to open 45 new stores this year, between April and May. With these new stores, Leslie’s will bring its total store count to more than 850 stores nationwide.  

Cincinnati -- The Kroger Co. announced that it will be the first in Oregon to deploy a fleet of heavy-duty trucks that run on Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). The 40 trucks will replace 40 diesel trucks currently in use, and are expected to start making store deliveries in the Portland metropolitan area by the end of 2014.

The use of natural gas fuel not only reduces operating costs for vehicles, but also reduces greenhouse gas emissions up to 23% in medium- to heavy-duty vehicles.

Cooking Light, Time Inc.’s leading epicurean brand, has expanded its prepared-foods line and co-branded SodaStream flavors to Target and Walmart.

Philadelphia -- Destination Maternity Corp. announced the start of its planned expansion into Mexico with the opening of 46 Destination Maternity  branded shop-in-shops through a previously announced international franchise agreement with El Puerto de Liverpool, S.A.B. de C.V., the largest department store operator in Mexico.