It’s been a month of big change for the grocery industry, and we have it all covered for you in our daily podcast on all things retail, which you can listen to via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. Here’s a quick summary of some of our top stories over the last month.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Walmart: The retail giant is almost a year into the launch of its drone delivery program in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. In early June, the company announced that shoppers will no longer have to place their orders through Wing, owned by Google parent company Alphabet. Shoppers will now be able to place their orders directly through the Walmart app.
Out of the foxhole: Upscale urban grocer Foxtrot, which abruptly closed its doors without notice in April, announced it aims to reopen select locations in Chicago and new locations in Austin and Dallas, Texas. The Washington, D.C., locations will remain permanently closed.
Trader Joe’s expanding: Trader Joe’s is planning to open 24 new stores this year, and eight of them will be in Southern California. Four of those will be located in Los Angeles County, and the remainder are expected for Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties. Expect to see the new locations in South Pasadena, Northridge, Sherman Oaks, Santa Clarita, Ladera Ranch, Murrieta, and Poway.
Dollar Tree splitsville? Dollar Tree revealed in early June that it is considering selling its Family Dollar banner. “The unique needs of each banner at this time—transformation at Family Dollar and growth acceleration at Dollar Tree—lead us to the decision to conduct a thorough review of strategic alternatives for the Family Dollar business,” the company announced. No deadline is set for completing the review.
Loblaw goes small: The Canadian grocery chain followed a trend in the supermarket industry of opening a smaller store in early June under its No Frills banner. The footprint for the Toronto location is under 15,000 square feet. That follows in the footsteps of other grocers, such as Whole Foods Market, which opened a new small-format store in Manhattan in March it calls Whole Foods Market Daily.
Ibotta makes a splash: In its first earnings report since going public on the New York Stock Exchange in mid-April, digital marketing company Ibotta announced year-over-year growth of 43%. “The primary driver of year-over-year growth was the expansion of the Walmart program, which initially launched in the third quarter of 2022 to members of Walmart’s paid membership program, Walmart+, and expanded to all Walmart customers with a Walmart.com account in the third quarter of 2023,” the company said.
Borrow A Lot: The deal between grocery company Yellow Banana, parent company of discount grocer Save A Lot, and the city of Chicago to open six new stores in the Windy City could be in jeopardy. Yellow Banana received $13.5 million in subsidies from the city to open six new stores within 24 months, but the grocery chain is approaching the halfway mark, and none of the stores have opened. If Yellow Banana fails to open the stores, the company could be on the hook to pay back the money.
Stop & Shop closures: Ahold Delhaize USA announced it is closing an unspecified number of its Stop & Shop locations that are underperforming. Stop & Shop operates about 400 locations across the U.S. The grocer said it will reveal the locations of the closures later this year.
