iParty Corp. Reports Fiscal 2010 and Fourth Quarter Financial Results

Fiscal Year 2010 Highlights: Consolidated revenues of $81.3 million, a 3.4% increase compared to fiscal year 2009, comparable store sales increase of 0.7%, net income of $254 thousand compared to $1.1 million for fiscal year 2009, EBITDA of $2.3 million compared to EBITDA $3.4 million for fiscal year 2009, opening of our second urban store in the South Bay Center in Dorchester, MA, and the expansion of our temporary Halloween store presence to eleven stores during 2010.

Sun Herald

Food Circus Plans an Expansion in New Jersey

A drive on Route 35 and nearby highways gives a sense of supermarket competition in New Jersey. The competition is not lost on Louis Scaduto Jr., president of Food Circus, the owner and operator of 10 Super Foodtowns in Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex counties. "We continue to develop the niche inside of the marketplace and create the points of differentiation where we can in order to keep our consumer base happy," said Scaduto. Now Scaduto hopes to add three locations, including a second store in Middlesex County, in the next two years.

APP

GFS to Develop More Bulk Food Stores

GFS Marketplace Stores, a bulk food store that serves the food service industry but also is open to individual shoppers without membership fees, will open two Chicago-area stores, in Schaumburg and Niles. The largest family-owned food service distributor in the country, GFS operates 140 stores throughout the Midwest and Florida. The company will open its first Wisconsin store in Pleasant Prairie this spring and is expanding in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.

Chicago Business

Food Lion Customers Take Advantage of Using In-Store Coupon Kiosks

Based on increased in-store coupon usage, Food Lion is planning to add more MVP Savings Center kiosks inside their stores to help customers immediately start saving money on their grocery bills. Since introducing the new MVP Savings Center kiosks inside Food Lion stores last year, kiosk coupons have up to five times the redemption rate when compared to coupons delivered via traditional distribution channels. Based on these positive results, Food Lion is planning to expand the service to other store locations.

PR USA

The Fresh Market Moving into Md.'s Montgomery County

The Fresh Market's first store in Maryland's Montgomery County will be located within Congressional Plaza, a 332,000-square-foot shopping center in Rockville. The Greensboro, N.C.-based grocer will operate a 19,860-square-foot location slated to open either late in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 or early in the first quarter of fiscal 2012.

Progressive Grocer

Iceland Looks to Open in East Europe

Frozen food tycoon Malcolm Walker has held talks with partners in Eastern Europe to roll out his Iceland supermarket chain abroad for the first time in 20 years. The group, which had to pull out of France at the end of the 1980s, has been exploring the Polish, Czech and Hungarian markets. Walker, who together with management owns 26pc of Iceland, is at the early stage of exploring a move abroad but has already met with possible franchisees. 

Mail Online

Rewe Meets Targets with FY Growth

The Rewe Group has reported solid sales growth for its fiscal year. For 2010, turnover was up 4% to €53bn, while they rose by 3.5% to €38.9bn excluding independent retailers and "at-equity participations". Growth was strongest in the domestic market, with turnover up 4%, while international sales grew by 2.2%. Sales at the German 'full-range' stores were up 6.4% to a record €14.5bn, which the group attributed to strategic and conceptual evolvement plus acquisitions made during the year. International full-range outlets were up 1.2% to €9bn, with growth in Austria, Russia and the Czech Republic offsetting declines in Poland.

Kam City

Tesco Announces China Property Joint Venture

Tesco has signed a joint venture to build three more shopping malls in China as part of its plans to rapidly expand in the world's most populous country. The total value of the project to build the shopping malls in Shenyang, Xiamen and Fuzhou is around £170m. Tesco said it aimed to quadruple revenue in China to about £4bn over five years by more than doubling its number of hypermarket outlets from the current 93. It plans to have built around 50 Lifespace malls by 2014-15, in collaboration with joint venture partners.

Kam City