Supervalu Taps Red Apple Store's Eric Claus as New CEO

Supervalu has named retail veteran Eric Claus the chief executive officer of Save-A-Lot, the company’s hard-discount grocery segment. Claus joins the company after spending the past two-plus years as the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Red Apple Stores Inc., a chain of value retail stores, in Canada. Supervalu also announced that, effective with the start of Claus’ employment with the company, Ritchie Casteel will serve as president of Save-A-Lot, reporting to Claus, and will continue to oversee day-to-day store operations while working closely with Claus on Save-A-Lot’s market development, store growth plans and preparation for the possible spin-off of Save-A-Lot. Claus has spent more than 30 years in the retail industry with career stops in both the United States and Canada, where he has gained deep experience in both hard discount and grocery retail. He has served as chief executive officer for Co-Op Atlantic; president and chief executive officer at the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), first in the Canadian division and then overseeing the U.S. operations from 2005-2009; and as an advisor to private equity firms on the retail and consumable goods industry. Since July 2013, he has served as chairman, president and chief executive officer of Red Apple Stores Inc., where he restructured and transformed the now 155-store value-oriented clothing, general merchandise and food chain. “I’m very pleased that Eric is joining our Supervalu team to serve as CEO of Save-A-Lot,” says Supervalu president and chief executive officer Sam Duncan. “He has a great background in food retailing, and is a smart and charismatic leader. His strengths in and experience with the hard discount format as well as his history leading retail companies will be important as we look to finish our fiscal year strong and as we continue to position Save-A-Lot for the future.” Jerry Storch, the company’s non-executive chairman of the board says, “Eric brings tremendous experience to Save-A-Lot. The Supervalu board of directors is looking forward to Eric adding his strategic and long-term planning capabilities to the company and working together on our continued exploration of a potential separation of Save-A-Lot.” Duncan adds: “I’m also very grateful and appreciative for all the work and positive results that Ritchie has delivered in his leadership role at Save-A-Lot. When I came to Supervalu, Ritchie was one of my first appointments and he has done a phenomenal job these past two and one-half years. He is a tremendous leader and operator and it reflects in the performance we’ve experienced in our corporate stores and in the confidence he’s helped restore with our licensees. I look forward to Ritchie working closely with Eric to drive sales and growth at Save-A-Lot.” Save-A-Lot is headquartered in St. Louis and has approximately 9,300 employees nationwide supporting its 1,342 stores, of which 901 are operated by licensee owners (store counts as of Sept. 12, 2015). The business also operates 17 distribution centers across the country to support its existing stores and future store growth. Supervalu announced in July  that it was exploring a separation of its Save-A-Lot business, and that as part of that process it had begun preparations to allow for a possible spin-off of Save-A-Lot into a stand-alone public company. Supervalu is continuing preparations to separate Save-A-Lot, although at this time there can be no assurances that a separation or spin-off of Save-A-Lot will occur, or that any other changes in the Company’s overall operations will happen.