News

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Walmart has pleaded guilty to charges that it inappropriately transported and disposed of common consumer products, such as bleach and fertilizer, while reiterating that the misdemeanor violations of certain environmental laws occurred years ago and had no specific environment impact.

BATTLE CREEK — Kellogg is committing more than 640,000 servings of food to support disaster relief efforts following the devastating tornado in Moore, Okla.

The company has already dispatched four semi-trailers of Kellogg's cereals and Keebler snacks to Moore, with more planned. Feeding America is working with food banks in its network, and other relief agencies, to provide the food to families and individuals impacted by the tornado, as well as relief workers assisting the community.

As of this writing, the first of hundreds of new gTLDs — the suffixes to the right of the dot in domain names — have begun to be approved for release on the Internet. In an international move that hasn’t been widely publicized in the U.S., ICANN has been sifting through some 2,000 applications for new domain name suffixes, alternatives to the dozen or so we’ve all become familiar with, such as .com, .net and .gov.

CINCINNATI — Kroger plans to provide $2.3 million to support the USO's broad range of programs that assist service members and their families, as part of its Honoring Our Heroes campaign.

For the following two weeks, store-wide promotions will feature hundreds of popular products at special sale prices. Customized shelf tags will highlight participating items, including Kroger's own products and items from key partners, including Unilever, Coca Cola, Kraft, Nestle, Frito Lay, Procter & Gamble, ConAgra and Dannon. Start and end dates vary by region.

CINCINNATI — Alan George "A. G." Lafley has rejoined Procter & Gamble as president and CEO, the company announced late last week. He succeeds Bob McDonald, who makes his exit from the company after 33 years.

Lafley has also been elected to the board of directors and will serve as its chair. Lafley joined Procter & Gamble in 1977 and served as president and CEO from 2000 to 2009.

LOS ANGELES — Target has launched a beauty concierge program at 96 existing stores in Los Angeles and Orange County area.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Kroger's mid-south division president John Hackett is retiring, after 50 years of service with the company. Hackett began his career with Kroger in 1963 as a store clerk in London, Ohio, while working his way through college at The Ohio State University.

ALLEN, Texas — PFSweb, an international provider of end-to-end e-commerce solutions, has appointed Shin Nagakura to the company’s board of directors.

Nagakura is a director of Transcosmos, or TCI, a leading Japanese business process outsourcing company. His appointment fulfills a condition of the strategic relationship that TCI and PFSweb entered into on May 15, which states that a TCI representative must sit on PFSweb’s board.

DALLAS — Haggar Clothing Co. has appointed Don Schneider as the company's VP director of sales. He will report to Tadd Parnell, SVP national sales manager.

Hagger will look to Schneider to lead the company's continued growth and management of its top national accounts, with special focus on Haggar dress shirts and sweater collections and the Haggar C18 golf collection.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Cold weather affected Hibbett Sports' first quarter results for the period ended May 4, but the sporting goods retailer still saw net sales of $240 million, a 3% increase from $233 million for the 13-week period ended April 28, 2012.

Comparable store sales increased 0.8% for the quarter.

For the quarter, Hibbett opened nine new stores, expanded five high performing stores and closed three underperforming stores, bringing the store base to 879 in 29 states.