KEASBEY, N.J. — The addition of 18 new stores helped Wakefern Food Corp. post a retail sales increase of 2.8% during the 2010 fiscal year, company officials said at the cooperative’s annual meeting last week.
Retail sales totaled $11.8 billion during the year. In addition, the company posted $9.6 billion in warehouse sales.
“In spite of the state of the economy, we’ve been able to grow,” Joseph Colalillo, chairman and chief executive officer of Wakefern, said in a statement. “We’ve entered new markets while our competitors are exiting them. We’ve opened new stores while many of our competitors are closing them. And our customers are rewarding us with their loyalty in the midst of some of the stiffest competition we have seen in decades.”
Wakefern members opened 14 new ShopRite and four PriceRite stores during the year and added three new members. “To support this new growth and to ensure that we have the capacity to respond to all of our members and the increase of volume, we have expanded our Keasbey, N.J., perishables warehouse by 90,000 square feet and are acquiring an additional 140,000 square feet of produce warehouse space,” added Dean Janeway, president and chief operating officer.
Wakefern shareholders elected to the board of directors: Colalillo as chairman; James Sumas, Larri Wolfson and Irv Glass as vice chairmen; Lawrence Inserra Jr. as treasurer; Richard Saker, Jeffrey Brown and Kenneth Capano as assistant treasurers; Dominick J. Romano as secretary; Ned Gladstein, Joel Perlmutter and Steven Ravitz as assistant secretaries; and Rocco Cingari, Lawrence Collins, Jon Greenfield, Charles Infusino, Bernard Kenny, Leonard Sitar, Richard Tully, Robert Clare and Richard McMenamin as directors.
Vincent Lo Curcio III, co-owner/vice president of operations of the Nutley Park ShopRite, was elected to the board for the first time. Janeway and Joseph Sheridan, executive vice president, were also reelected as operating officers.