US Postal Service to deliver groceries in New York

US: Instacart is reclassifying some of its workers as employees
Instacart is converting a large part of its contractor workforce into part-time employees, bloomberg.com reports. Instacart says it will make the change starting June 22 for staff members in Boston and Chicago, with more cities coming later. The shift comes amid an increasing debate over how technology companies such as Uber, Lyft, and the delivery service Postmates designate American workers who make a living using their services.

US: The Postal Service will deliver groceries to New Yorkers
Postal carriers in New York will soon deliver more than bills and junk mail. The U.S. Postal Service will begin delivering groceries later this month, according to a filing it made to the Postal Regulatory Commission, internetretailer.com reports. The filing says the USPS intends to extend its Customized Delivery service to the New York City metro area on or shortly after June 29. Customized Delivery is the name of the service the USPS began testing last year in the San Francisco area, with postal carriers delivering groceries on behalf of AmazonFresh, the e-grocery service owned by Amazon.com Inc., to consumers in 38 ZIP codes.

UK: Discounters are now twice as likely to open a new store
Lidl and Aldi are now twice as likely to open a new store across the UK in comparison to the big four supermarkets, lincolnshireecho.co.uk reports. New research from the Local Data Company has shown that from 2010 to 2015 stores that are labelled as discount retailers opened 1,367 units in comparison to 582 units from the big four, which includes Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrissons and Tesco. As part of the report 1,400 towns were surveyed and 10% of them didn't have any discount stores in 2010, but now every town had a discount store

East of England boosts its campaign for local food suppliers
East of England Co-operative is celebrating its successful partnership with local suppliers with a fortnight of events, thenews.coop reports. Sourced Locally Fortnight, which took place 1-14 June, gave a fresh boost to the scheme, which sees the society work with more than 140 supplier partners. Overall, it offers more than 2,750 products, with new additions introduced on a monthly basis. The society has put over £34m back into the local economies that surround its 200 branches across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

Carrefour, Colruyt get biggest fines in Belgian cartel case
Carrefour SA and Colruyt SA face the biggest penalties as Belgium’s competition authority fined 17 supermarkets and suppliers a total of €174m for plotting to fix prices of healthcare products and toiletries, Bloomberg reports. Carrefour agreed to pay €36.4m, followed by Colruyt’s €31.6m fine, according to details of a settlement with the Belgian agency made public on Monday.

Aldi Australia strengthens supply chain
Aldi in Australia has provided more detail about its AU$750m expansion into South and Western Australia, igd.com reports. It is looking to strengthen its fresh food offer with an improved supply chain. The retailer's new DC at Regency Park in Adelaide will be completed by the end of 2015, with suppliers informed that the facility will start taking inventory from 1 February 2016. Aldi plans to now open 20 stores in both South and Western Australia in 2016, a faster rate of expansion than previously expected. Stores are expected to first open in SA, with stores in WA expected to open from June 2016 onwards.

Malaysia: 7-Eleven to work with courier service provider
7-Eleven Malaysia is closing a deal with a courier service provider to use its wide network as a last-mile touch point, thestar.com.my reports. CEO Gary Thomas Brown said on Tuesday the company was in final discussions with a few service providers and would like to start the service before the year-end.

UK: Supermarket suppliers rate Aldi best on fair dealings
Aldi is the supermarket most likely to adhere to the Groceries Code of Practice, say suppliers, FarmersWeekly‎ reports. Iceland, Tesco and Morrisons are the worst in code compliance, say suppliers, but have made improvements since last year. The figures come from a YouGov survey, commissioned by the groceries code adjudicator, with a total of 1,145 suppliers and trade associations taking part.

UK: Morrisons hammered for price cuts on 'unhealthy' food
Supermarket chain Morrisons has been slated for including just one vegetable in its latest round of 200 price cuts, mirror.co.uk reports. Health campaigners claim out of the 200 products that have seen costs fall this month, the only greens were Birds Eye frozen peas, with more unhealthy snacks and drinks included in the offers.

Italy: Italmark buys 70% of Family Market
Italian regional supermarket chain Italmark has purchased a 70% stake in the Family Market group, esmmagazine.com reports. The remaining 30% stake will remain in the hands of local businessman Fabrizio Uberti, reports Giornale de Brescia. This deal will further strengthen Italmark’s leadership position in the retail sector in the municipality of Brescia and some areas of the Lombardy region.

US: Sudden closure for D'Agostino store: Report
A sudden closure of a Rye Brook, N.Y., D'Agostino store has raised new concerns about the financial health of the family-owned retailer, supermarketnews.com reports. The Journal News newspaper reported Monday that D'Agostino's Rye Brook store — its only location not in Manhattan — closed abruptly over weekend with the company failing to inform its landlord. Reports earlier this year said some suppliers were holding back shipments and demanding payment up front — often a signal of a company in financial distress.

UK: Waitrose selects IRI as business insights partner
British grocer Waitrose has selected global insight leader, IRI, as its new partner for business insights, internationalsupermarketnews.com reports. The long term partnership will commence in September this year.

UK: Tesco suppliers say retailer worst at following grocery code of practice
Tesco’s suppliers have rated the retailer as the worst of the major supermarkets at complying with a government-backed industry code designed to protect manufacturers, theguardian.com reports. Four in 100 of Tesco’s direct suppliers, who responded to a questionnaire by the grocery regulator, said the UK’s biggest supermarket never complied with the code of practice, which governs major retailers’ dealings with suppliers. A further 30% said the supermarket rarely complied with the code. Tesco said the survey, which covered just over 1,000 manufacturers in total, was a snapshot of its business partners’ views, given that the supermarket has 3,000 UK suppliers.

US: Facebook is now worth more than Walmart
In a little over three years as a public company, Facebook is now worth more than Walmart, qz.com reports.

UK: Aldi hits back at Wesfarmers 'misinformed' tax claim
Aldi Australia has hit back at insinuations by Wesfarmers chief executive Richard Goyder that it is not paying its fair share of tax, denouncing the claims as "misinformed and factually incorrect," afr.com reports. On Monday, Mr Goyder urged authorities to "go and have a good look at how much tax Aldi pays in this country", saying all players in the Australian grocery market should be on the same level playing field as Coles and Woolworths. "They should be paying corporate tax in Australia and they should be very transparent," Mr Goyder said. Aldi returned serve on Tuesday, refuting "any and all" claims that it was not compliant with Australian taxation regulations.

Carrefour launches in Algeria, Ivory Coast and Kenya
The first Carrefour supermarket opened in Algeria on the 18th June, lineaires.com reports. The Carrefour des Bananiers in the Bab Ezzouar commune covers 4,000 square metres and has 300 employees. The launch of Carrefour in Algeria was led by the company HDA (Hyper Distribution Algérie). HDA was created through the partnership of Saudi-Algerian company, Asicom and Ulysses Hyper Distribution, who already run Carrefour in Tunisia. The first Carrefour stores will also open in Sub-Saharan Africa this year, in Kenya and the Ivory Coast.

Carrefour launches ‘Bon ‘App’ stores
Carrefour have launched a new concept store that focuses on takeaway food: Carrefour Bon App! The 2 stores in Paris offer salads, soups, ready meals, sandwiches, fruits, desserts, warm bread and coffee, ac-franchise.comreports. The Casino group have the most stores of this format with over 8,300 in France compared to Carrefour who have 3,700.

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