Fresh fruit-selling Dollar General threat for Walmart

Aldi most profitable supermarket in AU
Aldi is now Australia’s most profitable supermarket and Coles and Woolworths will find it hard to stop, according to analysis by UBS. “We estimate Aldi holds 11% share of the East coast grocery market and has reached a tipping point, with customer acceptance and share of main shops rising at an accelerating rate,” says UBS. (businessinsider.com.au)

Walmart China sales up 5.1% in Q1 2016
Due to the strong performance of its Chinese stores during the Chinese New Year, Walmart China's total sales increased by 5.1% in the company's latest reporting period. Walmart released its financial report for the first quarter of 2016, and stated that its comparable sales increased by 1.4% and its comparable per customer transaction increased by 5.2%. In the last couple of years, Walmart built 11 centers for fresh food, and increased its packaged-food distribution centers from five to nine. Now, 85% of packaged goods is being sent through distribution centers. For fresh food, that figure is about 50%. (chinaretailnews.com / abcnews.go.com)

Lidl Portugal to invest €50m in store network
Discounter Lidl has earmarked €50m for the redesign and expansion of its store network in Portugal this year. An official company source told the Lusa news agency that Lidl has invested €12.5m in the period from January to May. More than half of the products sold in the store are of Portuguese origin. (esmmagazine.com)

Fruit-selling Dollar General a threat for Walmart
Dollar General, the largest such U.S. discount chain with 12,700 stores, said this week that young adult shoppers now account for 24% of its sales. That amounted to $1.26bn last quarter, as total revenue rose 7%. Dollar General has added 23,000 coolers at 9,000 of its stores to expand its grocery assortment. At about 160 Dollar General Plus stores, where the retailer goes for a higher-end presentation, it is testing a small assortment of the best-selling fresh fruits and vegetables. This has put Dollar General on a collision course with Walmart, which is investing heavily in upgrading its fresh food selection and is looking to avoid losing shoppers making smaller grocery runs. (fortune.com)

US: Fresh foods will drive sales, Costco says
Costco Wholesale Corp. said it expects fresh food to drive sales for the warehouse-club company. Speaking with investors Thursday, Richard A. Galanti, EVP and CFO, said the Issaquah, Wash.-headquartered company anticipates it can increase penetration of fresh foods “because the quality and values are awesome", supermarketnews.com reports. Fresh foods continues to be a key area of investment for Costco. It has been developing its global sourcing initiatives while also investing in the organic supply chain, a key segment for the retailer. Produce in particular is a significant business for Costco, generating sales of around $6bn annually, broadly level with its protein sales. (supermarketnews.com/igd.com)

China: Alibaba rural focus to drive growth
Alibaba Group is continuing its push to develop e-commerce in China’s less-wealthy rural regions, with the number of rural service centers soaring more than eightfold since the end of June last year. The Alibaba rural focus has seen service centers opened in some 16,000 villages in 29 provinces, up from 1803 centers nearly 11 months ago, according to statistics released during a company sponsored rural e-commerce summit held in Shandong Province. In January, Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang said a 2016 strategic priority is “to ramp up our efforts to bring quality goods to rural buyers, and deliver local produce to urban customers, so the rural market can be connected to the whole country and even the whole world.” (insideretail.asia)

Poland: Carrefour ‘Premium’ Market store to focus on organic
Carrefour has opened its newest concept store in Poland – its first ‘Premium’ Market outlet – which allows shoppers to juice fruit they have bought in-store, as well as access a 'ripening room' The product offering places emphasis on organic fresh produce. (esmmagazine.com)

LuLu Group plans 12 more stores in Saudi Arabia by 2018
LuLu Group, Abu Dhabi-based retail major, further expanded its operations in the hugely potential Saudi market with the opening of a new hypermarket in Jeddah on Sunday. It’s LuLu’s 125th hypermarket and seventh in Saudi Arabia, with 12 more slated to open by 2018. (albawaba.com)

Italy: U2 Supermercato deploys EDLP model in new store
Italy’s U2 Supermercato has implemented an EDLP (Every Day Low Price) model at its new store in Saronno, near Varese. Instead of promotions, limited offers, leaflets and loyalty points, the supermarket will seek to offer average savings of between 15 and 50% on all merchandise. The outlet will offer some 8,150 SKUs, of which 750 in the fresh department. (esmmagazine.com)

Russia: X5 Opens milestone 7,500th store
Russian retailer X5 has opened its 7,500th store in Russia as the group celebrates its 10th year in operation in the country. The store, under its supermarket banner Pyaterochka, is located in Lipetsk. In 2016, Pyaterochka plans to open approximately 300 new stores within the Central-Chernozemny Division. (esmmagazine.com)

Spain: Eroski to readjust strategies to focus on competitiveness
Spanish retailer Eroski has readjusted its company strategy to focused more competitiveness, Agustín Markaide, president of the company, has stated. The new strategy places customers at the center of the organisation and places greater importance on the role of relationships. Another key challenge for the company, in the midst of its rollout of its 'Contigo' business model, is promoting healthy food. (esmmagazine.com)

Ireland: Aldi partners with Foodcloud to cut food waste
Discount retailer Aldi commissioned a new survey which has revealed that the average Irish shopper loses €400 a year due to food wastage. Fruit and vegetables turn out to be the items which consumers are most likely to throw away. To tie in with the survey, Aldi has teamed up with FoodCloud to donate 500,000 meals to 172 charity partners this year. (newstalk.com)

Lidl plans new store openings and existing store remodelling
German discount supermarket chain Lidl will invest in new store openings and store revamps in the coming years, in line with its 'store of the future' concept. The retailer reported impressive revenue growth of 9% to €64.4bn in its 2015/2016 financial year. The grocer will open its first outlets in Lithuania this summer with plans to enter the Serbian market in 2018. (esmmagazine.com)

TPG said to be in talks to acquire Abraaj’s Spinneys chain in Egypt
TPG Capital is in talks to buy the Spinneys supermarket chain in Egypt from Abraaj Group, in what would be the U.S. buyout firm’s first deal in the North African country, two people with knowledge of the matter said. (esmmagazine.com)

Spain: Mercadona opens new outlet in Basque Country
Mercadona has opened its first supermarket in Gipuzkoa, in Spain's Basque Country. A total of €2.9m was invested in the new store, the company said. Mercadona also plans to open stores in Eibar and Oiartzun in the coming year. (esmmagazine.com)

Baltic states: Maxima group sees 3.7% turnover growth in 2015
Baltic region retail group Maxima increased its annual turnover by 3.7% in 2015, earning a total €2.68bn. Profit after tax hit €77m, as the group showed strong performances in its Lithuanian and Polish markets. In Estonia, Bulgaria and Latvia large-scale investments meant the Maxima companies in these regions finished the year with a loss. In Lithuania, it grew by 2%, earning €1.524bn; in Latvia by 2.1% and amounted to €689m; in Estonia by 9.9% with a turnover of €440.8m; in Bulgaria by 10.2%, which was equal to €72.5m; and in Poland by 17.8%, with a figure of €45.4m in the audited turnover. (esmmagazine.com)

How Sainsbury's plans to win with quality
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Cencosud reports resilient Q1
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