News

Seattle – Starbucks is opening a new Evolution Fresh juicery in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., that the retailer says will quadruple its production of cold-pressed, never-heated juice. The $70 million, 264,000-sq.-ft. facility features advanced technology such as High Pressure Processing (HPP) machines.

Retail Process Engineering, an innovative retail merchandising and supply chain solutions provider, has appointed Tom DiPinto as an account executive. 

DiPinto has more than 20 years of experience in enterprise class software solutions with deep experience in retail, project management and systems implementation. He will be responsible for identifying new clients and working with existing clients to align software solutions with business objectives to improve processes, grow the business and save money. 

Boston – College students most frequently eat snack foods in the afternoon and are frequently replacing meals with snacks. A new study from marketing agency Fluent shows that 75% of college students replace meals with snacks and afternoon snacking is three times more popular than morning or late night snacking.

Other notable findings of the survey college students age 18-25 include:

Fred’s saw positive performance in its general merchandise and pharmacy departments, which lead to sales of $177.3 million in September, an increase of 4% over September 2012.

The Memphis, Tenn.-based company, which operates 702 stores in the South, said same-store sales increased by 2.8%, compared with a 3.8% decrease last year.

For the year to date, sales were $1.3 billion, a 1% increase over $1.3 billion during the same period last year. Same-store sales increased by 0.8%, compared with a 1.2% decrease last year.

San Francisco - Walk-by conversion and in-store engagements among U.S., consumers slipped in September compared to August as consumers became more cautious and less compelled to shop after back-to-school spending. In-store analytics technology vendor Euclid’s U.S. Retail Benchmarks for September 2013, based on 20 million domestic shopping sessions, suggest September same-store and total store sales may be sluggish for many retailers.

Specific findings include:

Cosmetics retailer Lush is turning to Storage Made Easy’s Enterprise File Share and Sync solution with data stored on OpenStack Swift to help improve its global reach.


Lush ran an initial two month trial with 50 people prior to moving forward with the Storage Made Easy solution. They subsequently rolled out the solution in stages, by department, first to 150 people and then on to 300 people, and then again on to 500 people.

“Lush expects to reach more than 1,000 users by the time the solution is fully rolled out," said Jim Liddle, Storage Made Easy CEO.

Los Angeles -- Rite Aid Corp. has been ordered to pay more than $12 million to settle a civil environmental protection lawsuit filed in California claiming about 600 of its stores illegally dumped pesticides, bleach and other toxics, the Associated Press reported.

The lawsuit was filed last month by the district attorneys of Los Angeles, San Joaquin and Riverside counties, with a total of 52 California district attorneys joining the civil action.

New York -- U.S. chain-store sales posted a gain of 4.0% for the fiscal month of September on a year-over-year basis according to a tally compiled by the International Council of Shopping Centers. Excluding gasoline sales, the September tally would actually be +5.1%.