Independents / Regional Grocers

NEW YORK -- Wal-Mart Stores is pleased with the 100,000-square-foot supercenter prototype it opened in mid-January in Tampa, following a disaster with a similar-sized prototype in Dallas five years ago, Jay Fitzpatrick, senior vice president and treasurer, told an investors conference here last week."The biggest problem [at the Tampa store] is, it's doing more volume than we thought, and we're running

byElliot Zwiebach