NEWS ROUNDUP 1994-08-15 (1)

Roundy's to Sell Midland Unit

here has agreed to sell its Midland Grocery Co. division, based in Parkersbury, W. Va., to Gummer Wholesale, Heath, Ohio, for an undisclosed amount of cash.

The sale is expected to be completed in late September.

Midland supplies about 200 convenience-store customers and other small retail outlets in West Virginia, Virginia and Ohio, according to a Roundy's spokesman. Its sales volume is less than $100 million.

Gummer also supplies a convenience-store customer base, the spokesman said.

Gerald Lestina, president and chief operating officer of Roundy's, said the sale of Midland provides the wholesaler an opportunity to redeploy assets in its core business segments of wholesale distribution to supermarkets.

Roundy's acquired Midland as part of its 1988 purchase of Cardinal Foods, Columbus, Ohio. Gummer's purchase includes only the business and inventory. Roundy's expects to sell the building later this year.

Publix Branches Out in Georgia

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Publix Super Markets, the nation's eighth-largest grocery retailer, opened its first store in Douglas County, Georgia, last week.

The store, a 55,000-square-foot food and pharmacy unit, is the 26th store Publix has opened in less than two years, according to the company. Publix operates 451 stores in Florida and Georgia.

The newest store, in Douglasville, Ga., is 25 miles west of Atlanta, where Publix has been focusing its expansion effort since 1992.

Publix also said it expects to open a distribution center, a dairy processing plant and an ice-cream manufacturing plant in Atlanta, all of which are scheduled to begin operation next year.

Mini Vons' Store Scoring Big

ARCADIA, Calif. -- The newest Vons Cos. store measures only 400 square feet. But that's all right with its "customers," most of whom are only 3 or 4 feet tall.

The store, located at the Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena, Calif., is a pint-sized version of a regular Vons supermarket, including shopping baskets, red store smocks, a hanging scale to weigh produce and a checkstand that's two-and-a-half feet high.

The store is stocked with many actual products found in a Vons store, but the perishables are made of plastic.

"Our mini Vons is a unique opportunity for us to create a fun environment in which children can touch, play and learn," said Richard E. Goodspeed, president and chief operating officer of Vons. "Kidspace is an ideal location for Vons to provide these types of learning opportunities."