Target, Kroger, Safeway Gain in PoweRankings

WILTON, Conn. — Target, Kroger and Safeway all showed strong gains in this year's Cannondale Associates PoweRanking, an annual assessment of food retailers' strategic initiatives by manufacturers.

Wal-Mart Stores, Bentonville, Ark., maintained its position at the top of the composite rankings with a score of 57.2%, despite a slip of 7.1% from a year ago. Minneapolis-based Target Corp., at No. 2 with a score of 43.4%, gained 4.9% over year-ago levels, and Kroger Co., Cincinnati, was No. 3 with a score of 30%, up 4.5%.

Safeway saw gains of 4.3% to capture the No. 6 position with a composite score of 20.1%. Costco and Wegmans both had slight gains and ranked Nos. 4 and 5, respectively.

Filling out the top 10 were Publix at No. 7, H-E-B at No. 8, CVS at No. 9 and Whole Foods at No. 10.

Target garnered an especially high score for “branding its stores,” where it placed No. 1, ahead of Wal-Mart and Wegmans at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively. Target also ranked atop the list of retailers that are the most innovative in their consumer marketing and merchandising, followed by Wegmans and H-E-B.

The study also asked manufacturers to predict which retailers would be “power retailers” in the next 15 years, and British retailer Tesco, which just opened its first Fresh & Easy stores in the U.S. two weeks ago, ranked No. 6., behind, Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, Costco and Safeway, in that order.

Among manufacturers as ranked by retailers, Procter & Gamble was the No. 1 supplier, earning the top spot in every category. It was followed by Kraft, PepsiCo, General Mills, Unilever, Nestlé, Kellogg's, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola and ConAgra.