Distribution

The Sobey’s chain of food stores, whose parent company counts former Walmart Canada head Dave Ferguson among its board members, has added new square footage to its retail portfolio with the acquisitions of Safeway’s Canadian stores.

The $5.8 billion deal, announced late Wednesday will added Safeway’s 223 stores and 12 manufacturing facilities to Sobey’s existing operation which includes about 1,500 stores under banners such as Sobeys, IGA extra, Thrifty Foods, IGA, Foodland and FreshCo.

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Meijer will open two 190,000-sq.-ft. supercenters in the northern Indiana towns of Portage and Warsaw on June 13. Meijer operates more than 200 stores in the Midwest and will have 32 stores in Indiana. Meijer expects the stores to create more than 500 new jobs.

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens will pay $80 million as part of a settlement with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) over a failure to report unusually large shipments of prescription painkillers from a distribution center in Jupiter, Fla. Six Walgreens pharmacies in Florida received tens of thousands of orders for regulated painkillers that were up three times the normal size, but the distribution center did not report them to the DEA as they were required to by law.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Meijer is opening two 190,000-sq.-ft. supercenters in Portage and Warsaw, in northern Indiana, creating more than 500 new jobs.

The family-owned retailer, which already has 32 stores throughout Indiana, built the new locations to LEED standards. The two supercenters are the latest in a $200 million investment this year that includes the construction of six new Meijer supercenters, extensive remodel projects for five additional stores in Michigan and Illinois and major upgrades to two distribution complexes.

A 4.2% first quarter same store sales increase at teen retailer Five Below and better than expected results prompted the operator of 258 stores to increase its full year guidance.
 
Sales for the quarter ended May 4 increase 33.1% to $95.6 million and operating income swung to $3.2 million from a prior year loss of $2 million. Net income was $1.6 million compared to a net loss of $1.2 million the prior year.

The Canadian retail landscape shifted again late Wednesday when Safeway announced the sale of its operations there to Sobeys Inc. for $5.8 billion.

The all cash deal will result in net proceeds to Safeway of about $2 billion which will be used to pay down debt. Sobey’s is a Canadian food retailer and a wholly owned subsidiary of Empire Company Limited. It is acquiring Safeway’s 223 store operation and 12 manufacturing facilities that last year generated sales of $6.7 billion in Canadian dollars and a $428 million operating profit.

Dallas -- Seattle’s Best Coffee is opening new operations in North Texas, according to CBRE. So far, 10 stores have opened throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area with more scheduled to open later this year.

CBRE Retail Brokerage provided market evaluation, mapping and demographic analysis, site selection and lease negotiation. CBRE Project Management provided construction services.

The 10 new stores are located throughout Burleson, Dallas, Fort Worth, Lancaster, McKinney and Rockwall.

HAMILTON, N.J. — Bai Brands, makers of a line of all-natural, 5-calorie, antioxidant-infused beverages, has promoted Ken Kurtz to the role of president. Kurtz will be charged with leading the company's sales efforts globally.

Kurtz sits alongside COO Barak Bar-Cohen and CFO Ari Soroken, who make up the company's executive leadership team.

Washington, D.C. -- Import volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to increase 1.1% in June over the same month last year, reflecting modest growth expectations as retailers head toward the back-to-school and holiday seasons, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.



New York -- Amazon.com confirmed it is testing its online grocery delivery service in Los Angeles.

The online retail giant has been testing the service called Amazonfresh, in Seattle for several years. It confirmed Monday that it is now offering the service in Los Angeles, also on a trial basis. Reuters recently reported that the online retail giant will next target the San Francisco area.