Safeway to Open 6 New Bay Area Stores

Safeway Inc. will combat an aggressive crop of rivals with an expansion that includes nine new stores in the West -- of which six will be in the Bay Area.  Pleasanton, Castro Valley, El Cerrito, Campbell, Los Gatos and Burlingame are the cities where Safeway plans to revamp or open stores this year.  In addition, the grocery giant is working to obtain city approvals for stores in Pleasant Hill, Emeryville and Berkeley. 

Mercury News

Rite Aid's Slow but Steady Comps

Rite Aid reported a year-to-date, same-store sales decline of 0.9%. Front-end same-store sales declined 0.4% and pharmacy same-store sales slid 1.1%. For the 47 weeks ended January 22, 2011, total drugstore sales recorded a year-over-year decline of 2.0% to gross $22.680 billion. Prescription revenue represented 67.8% of total drugstore sales, and third-party prescription revenue accounted for 96.2% of pharmacy sales.

Zacks

Baltimore's Virtual Supermarket Expanding

Baltimore's virtual supermarket program is expanding to two new locations to provide healthier choices to more residents currently without access to grocery stores. The program allows residents to order groceries online at the locations and have them delivered there.  Residents use computers at the locations to shop for healthier food at better prices than they can find in their neighborhood. They don't have to worry about the usual travel expenses that accompany going to a far-away store.

WBAL TV

Festival Foods to Buy 2 Quillin's Grocery Stores in La Crosse

The De Pere-based company plans to buy the Quillin's stores, a family-owned retail food chain based in La Crosse with stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.  Festival will build a new 74,000-square-foot store in La Crosse on the site of one of the newly acquired properties.  The other store will remain open through 2011.  When construction of the new store is complete, the other location will close.

Greenbay Press Gazette

Colruyt Q3 Results Meet Targets Despite Poor Weather

Colruyt has reported third-quarter results in line with its forecasts, as it managed to avoid too much impact from the icy conditions across Europe in December. For the quarter, sales were up 7.2% to €1.94bn, helping push group retail sales for the first nine months up 8.1% to €4.26bn.  Colruyt said it recorded "strong end-of-year sales" despite the poor weather conditions, and despite consumer confidence dropping in December. It also said it continues to focus on a low-price strategy.

Kam City

Waitrose Annual Sales Hit Record £5bn

Waitrose has surpassed £5bn in sales for a year for the first time ever it revealed yesterday. Total sales growth for the 12 months starting 1 February 2010 now stands at almost 10%. The company passed the £5bn landmark on Saturday after seeing a 6.4% year-on-year increase in sales during the previous seven days.  The company attributed the growth to a series of initiatives launched over the last year.

Kam City

Strong Sales Help Ocado Post Q4 Profit

Ocado moved into profit ahead of expectations in its fourth quarter and said it was continuing to see strong sales growth at the start of its new financial year. Posting its first full-year results as a listed company, the online grocer said today that it made a pre-tax profit of £300,000 in the three months ended 28 November, though for the year as a whole it made a loss of £12.2m including £3.5m of costs related to its initial public offering (IPO) in July.  

Kam City

Home Depot Closes Last Beijing Store

The Home Depot Inc. has closed its last Beijing store and plans to focus on high-growth second-tier cities in China --- Tianjin and Xi'an.  The Atlanta-based home improvement retailer now operates seven stores in China.  It said it does not have any new store openings planned in China for 2011.

Atlanta Business Chronicle