Publix earnings and sales keep growing

A group of South African fruit growers visited the UK for the first time as part of a training and skills programme developed by the Fresh Produce Exporters' Forum and funded by Sainsbury's and the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), 4-traders.com reports. For a week, 11 growers went behind the scenes of Sainsbury's supply chain leading to the point where their products are available to customers on the supermarket shelf.

UK: Sainsbury's results likely to confirm UK supermarket woes
The woes of the UK’s supermarket sector will be highlighted this week when Sainsbury’s full-year results are expected to reflect the impact of competition from rivals and the falling value of its store network, theguardian.com. Sainsbury’s dived to a pretax loss of £290m in the first half and is expected to post a 17% fall in profits to £660m on Wednesday. According to some estimates, property writedowns could push Sainsbury’s into a statutory loss, which would be its first annual loss in 10 years.

US: Publix earnings, sales continue to grow
Publix saw a successful Q1 in terms of sales and earnings, with sales hitting $8.3bn (a 6.8% uptick from last year) and net earnings reaching $548.9m (11.2% bump), fooddive.com reports. Comparable-store sales for Q1 rose 5.3%. In 2014, the company saw sales of $30.6bn.

Wal-Mart eliminates regional executive roles to streamline US
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is eliminating its US regional-division executive vice president positions, the latest of a series of changes intended to simplify operations and improve customer service, esmmagazine.com reports.

UK: One Stop launches first Subway units
One Stop, the Tesco convenience subsidiary with 770 stores, has launched its first tie up with major food-to-go franchise Subway, retailanalysis.igd.com reports. The first Subway unit within a One Stop store has now opened in one of One Stop's independent owned stores on Evington Road in Leicester. A second will follow in a company-owned store in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire.

US: Weis Q1 results mixed
Sales at Weis Markets were up but net income declined in the first quarter, according to company results released Friday, supermarketnews.com reports. Weis said sales grew 3.7% to $712.4m during the 13-week period ending March 28. Comparable store sales excluding fuel rose 4.7% while overall comparable store sales increased 3.4%. At the same time, net income dropped 11.2% to $13.1m during the same period. Earnings per share were $0.49, down from $0.55 per share in the first quarter of 2014.

US: Hy-Vee’s Edeker elected NACDS chairman
Hy-Vee chairman, president and CEO Randy Edeker was elected chairman of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores at the trade organization’s annual meeting in Florida this week, supermarketnews.com reports. Edeker will serve a one-year term as chairman.

US: Kroger to buy 7 Hiller's supermarkets, close 1
Regional grocery store chain Kroger announced Friday morning that has agreed to purchase all seven Hiller's locations in Michigan and will operate six of those stores going forward, mlive.com reports.

Tesco spurns £4bn offer for Korean stores
Tesco has rejected a £4bn unsolicited bid for its South Korean assets from an American private equity giant, thesundaytimes.co.uk reports. Carlyle, whose British investments include Addison Lee taxis and Holland & Barrett health food shops, is understood to have approached the supermarket giant with an offer for its Homeplus business in recent months. Tesco has more than 400 directly owned stores in South Korea and another 200 franchises, serving more than 6m customers a week. It is the grocery chain’s biggest market outside Britain.

UK: Tesco faces 30 years of paying off pension deal
It will take 30 years for Tesco to close a black hole in its pension fund under the grocer’s proposals to replenish the scheme, according to a highly critical analysis by an independent expert, thetimes.co.uk reports.

UK: New price cuts likely from Morrisons
The board of Morrisons has paved the way for new CEO David Potts to begin a fresh round of price cuts – and will not set financial targets on bonuses until he has conducted a strategic review, thenational.scot reports. The group’s annual report revealed that its remuneration committee has not set financial targets on its share awards because it wants Potts to have “time to assess the business and provide his input into the formation of the long-term business plan”. One City analyst said: “This looks like more price cuts are on the way.”

Asda: Scottish suppliers account for £1.2bn in annual retail sales
Supermarket giant Asda reports £1.2bn of annual retail sales last year came from from Scottish-made products and produce, dailyrecord.co.uk writes. Asda said the figure, calculated from gross retail till sales, marks “another year of double digit growth”. The group said it is unable to produce figures on what it pays suppliers for their goods as those figures are “commercially confidential”.

US: Schnucks lays off 52 at headquarterssupermarketnews.com
Schnuck Markets eliminated 52 positions at its headquarters in St. Louis on Wednesday, the company told SN in a prepared statement, reports.The layoffs spanned different departments and position levels, the company said. “This represents less than one-half of one% (0.5%) of Schnucks' overall workforce,” the company said. Schnucks did not provide information on the reason behind the layoffs.