Lidl sells freshest fruit and veg in Germany

US: Walmart expands grocery pickup locations at neighborhood markets
Walmart ratcheted up its test of curbside pickup for groceries by adding five more Neighborhood Market locations in Arkansas, the Wall Street Journal reports. Walmart currently has one freestanding pickup location near its headquarters. (nacsonline.com)

Spain: Eroski extends reach of click and collect service
Following on from a successful trial of the service, with sales doubling at the store where it has been available, Eroski is set to add click and collect points at five stores in the Bilbao region. Overall the retailer said that online sales had risen by 15% in the first half of 2015, with visitor numbers to its site hitting two million in June. (igd.com)

Lidl sells the freshest fruit and vegetables
Aldi, Lidl and Netto are the highest-revenue discounters in Germany - with the most departments. In the ranking of the Monday check, ARD tested the three great discounters. In the area of fruit and vegetables, food inspector Bernd Stummt evaluates 80 samples, and comes to the conclusion that Lidl sells the freshest fruit and vegetables. Aldi and Netto are far behind. Particularly interesting: Netto's mother concern, Edeka, supplies Netto with the fruit and vegetables which it is not allowed to sell anymore due to lesser quality. A Netto store manager confirms this to ARD. Around 40 percent of the fruit and vegetable assortment would be affected by this. The report is getting criticism from the newspaper "Die Welt". Indeed, the ARD brings delicate criticisms to the surface against Netto and Aldi. But what the broadcasting station makes out of it is extremely annoying, says the newspaper. (ardmediathek.de)

Spain: Bon Preu says total growth hit 10% in H1
Bon Preu grew total sales by 10.4% to €493.4 million, while like-for-like sales were up by 4.7%, during the first half of the year. The company said that the positive sales performance in the first six months of 2015 enabled it to forecast sales growth of 11% for the full year. (igd.com)

Spain: Consum expecting strong rise in revenues in 2015
Consum has said its performance thus far in 2015 is enabling it to forecast total growth of nearly 10% for the year. The retailer said that its continued expansion was set to underpin the revenue growth. (igd.com)

Kenya: Uchumi's new CEO outlines his turnaround plan
Troubled retailer Uchumi Supermarket chain is working towards strengthening its relationship with suppliers under the leadership of the newly appointed chief executive Julius Kipng’etich. The former equity bank chief operations officer spoke to the media for the first time in his new role and outlined that he is pursuing local and regional suppliers as part of his turnaround plan for Uchumi. (standardmedia.co.ke)

Germany: HelloFresh valued at €2.6 billion after venture financing round
HelloFresh GmbH, a German food-delivery startup backed by the Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet SE, raised 75 million euros in funding, lifting its valuation to 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion) as it seeks to increase its market share and expand further. (esmmagazine.com)

IGA prepares for Aldi attack
Grocery wholesaler Metcash has kicked off a grassroots campaign to defend the market share of IGA retailers in South Australia and Western Australia before a $700 million Aldi invasion. As Aldi prepares to open two distribution centres and the first of as many as 120 stores in South Australia and Western Australia early next year, Metcash and IGA supermarkets are strengthening relationships with local food suppliers and building the IGA brand through mainstream and social media marketing and events such as the Adelaide show. (farmweekly.com.au)

UK: Tesco seeks to sell sites
The sites sell-off by Tesco, who at the start of 2015 announced a drive to cut overheads by 30%, and which included some redundancies, includes two Dublin properties, and five in Cork. (irishexaminer.com)

'Aussie-first' Aldi rejects Dick Smith claims that it plans to only sell Chinese goods
Aldi has hit back at claims made by high-profile entrepreneur Dick Smith, who predicted the German supermarket chain will eventually dominate the Australian grocery market and when that happens “everything will come from China”. Smith made the claims in an interview with author Malcolm Knox for his book Supermarket Monsters, which explores the dominance of Australia’s two market leading supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths. In a section of the book that examines Aldi’s growing popularity among Australian supermarket shoppers, Smith predicts Aldi will send Coles and Woolworths “broke” in 15 years. “If you think Coles and Woolies are ruthless, you wait. Aldi are the smartest retailers in the world,” Smith said. “Australia will make Aldi boom because we’re just interested in the cheapest price, but there’s no doubt in my mind once they’ve got large market share, everything will come from China.” But Aldi has fired shots back in an attempt to dispel some common myths about the discount retail chain, telling SmartCompany it overwhelmingly sources its private-label products from within Australia. “Currently, 90% of Aldi’s core range is private label, with the majority of these products sourced from Australian manufacturers,” a spokesperson for Aldi says. (smartcompany.com.au)