News

Walmart will offer its holiday layaway 30 days earlier this year and extend the program to more product categories, the company announced Monday.

MINNEAPOLIS — Caribou Coffee Co. announced it will be expanding its retail and commercial footprint in the Chicagoland area by teaming up with supermarket operator Jewel-Osco, which is part of the Supervalu company.

Caribou Coffee opened its first retail location within Jewel-Osco's Barrington store last week, with plans to introduce two additional coffeehouses in the grocery's Hoffman Estates and Countryside locations in the near future, as well as five additional coffeehouses within Jewel-Osco in 2013.

LONDON & ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Unilever has completed the sale of its North America frozen meals business, conducted under the Bertolli and P.F. Chang’s brand names, to ConAgra Foods Inc., for total cash consideration of $267 million, subject to adjustment.

RICHMOND, Va. — Eight supermarkets in the Richmond, Va., area are using one of the most important parts of the store to promote healthy eating: the checkout lane.

Martin's Food Markets, part of the Ahold USA's Giant-Carlisle chain, announced it had partnered with the Richmond City Health District and Greater Richmond Fit4Kids in launching "Healthy Ideas" checkout lanes at the stores. Items will include fruit, nuts, snack packs from the store's Nature's Promise natural and organic section, nutrition bars and 100% fruit juice.

MINNEAPOLIS — Supervalu on Monday announced Robert Bly will join the company as president of Shoppers, a 56-store division in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., market.

Bly is expected to begin his new role on Aug. 22 and will report to Chuck Elias, SVP retail operations. Bly replaces Tim Lowe, who recently accepted a new leadership role in Supervalu's merchandising organization.

New York -- Apple Inc. became the most valuable public company of all time on Monday, after its market value climbed beyond $620 billion to surpass a milestone set by Microsoft Corp. more than 10 years ago, Reuters reported.

Apple shares reached a high of $664.74 on Monday morning, giving them a total value of $623.14 billion. This broke past the record of $620.58 billion set by Microsoft back in 1999, according to the report.

Philadelphia -- Urban Outfitters Inc.’s profit for the second quarter rose 8% to $61.3 million from $56.7 million in the year-ago period, helped by strong sales as its namesake stores.

Total company net sales for the quarter, ended July 31, rose by 11% over the same quarter last year to $676 million. Same-store net sales, which include the direct-to-consumer channel, increased 4% for the quarter, while comparable store net sales decreased 1%.

Dallas -- PeopleAnswers announced a software licensing agreement with Boston Market to use the PeopleAnswers HR solution to help identify and select all field employees in its 476 locations across the United States.

The West Coast is getting its first taste of Uniqlo. The Japanese apparel powerhouse has opened a tech-inspired pop-up store, on Post Street in San Francisco. The temporary store will remain open until the end of September, prior to the opening of the company’s Union Square flagship.

By Shelley E. Kohan, [email protected]