Giant Food, Landover, Md., has settled a labor contract with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27 members. The pact, covering about 6,000 retail clerks and meat cutters in the Baltimore/Eastern Shore area, calls for wage hikes, the introduction of a 401(K) plan and language changes that allow vendors to perform in-store duties, a Giant spokesman said. The new contract, which expires March 2000, takes effect next month, when the present contract expires.
e Valu Plus Food Warehouse banner, with annual sales exceeding $200 million.
Wal-Mart Stores, Bentonville, Ark., opened 64 supercenters in the six months ended July 31, boosting its total supercenter count to 303, the company said last week. Of those, 59 were discount store conversions.
Safeway, Pleasanton, Calif., has completed the consolidation of accounting for all its U.S. divisions at its new National Accounting Services Center in Phoenix, a move intended to create a single information systems platform and lower costs, the company said. Accounting operations from the Phoenix, Denver, Washington and northern California divisions, plus corporate general accounting, have been moved to the Phoenix facility.
Quality Food Centers, Bellevue, Wash., last week agreed to acquire two stores in Seattle from Food Giant, a small Seattle-based operator. QFC, which has 62 stores, said it expects to close the deal in October. Terms were not disclosed. At QFC's annual meeting this spring, executives said the chain would seek acquisitions from independents in the Puget Sound region.
General Mills, Minneapolis, last week agreed to buy the ready-to-eat cereal and snack mix businesses of Ralcorp Holdings, St. Louis, maker of Chex cereal, in a deal valued at $570 million. Ralcorp's cereal sales were $285 million for the year ended June 1996, vs. General Mills' $2.2 billion in the year ended May 26.
Sales were pinched, but supermarkets had scant inventory loss in the power outage that hit nine Western states Aug. 10, retailers told SN. Most of the affected stores lost power for under two hours. One exception, Raley's Supermarkets, Sacramento, Calif., lost power at 16 stores for nearly seven hours, but stayed in operation using backup generators.
